MARTHA MACCALLUM (HOST): Why is this getting such an uproar?
BYRON YORK: Well, because so many people oppose it politically. But, first thing to remember is that Trump narrowed his ban proposal almost immediately after he put it out there. He said, 'No, no, no it would not apply to Muslims who are U.S. citizens, who were serving in the armed services.' If there had been a ban on them, that would have been clearly unconstitutional, violating their constitutional rights. But the courts have shown for a long time, that foreigners, be they Muslim or anybody else, do not have United States constitutional rights. And you're right, there was something called the Chinese Exclusion Act, which was in effect from 1882 all the way to 1943 and then there was a big immigration act in 1924, the Immigration Act of '24, that limited immigration from all sorts of places, very specifically from countries and regions. And even today, we actually limit the number of immigrants who are allowed into the United States from various places.
MACCALLUM: Yeah, we sure do. I think everybody knows somebody who has had trouble getting in or had to leave the country and, you know, stay away for several years. One of the big differences here, an obvious one, is that we're talking about a religion, we're not talking about a country. And I wonder if Donald Trump had approached this in a slight different way, people from certain countries are not allowed to come in, whether he would be getting a different response. But you're talking about Muslims, rather than citizens of a foreign country.
YORK: Actually, some lawmakers, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, have approached this in that different way. They have a bill in the Senate that would exclude or, I think put a temporary pause, a three year pause on immigration from countries that do have a significant terrorist presence in those countries. That is not a religious sort of thing. But on the basic issue of constitutional rights there is -- it is clearly unconstitutional to impose a religious test, for example, on an American holding office, but it is not unconstitutional for someone in another part of the world, who is not what they call a U.S. person, it is not unconstitutional to exclude them if that is what congress and the president want to do.
