Jazz Shaw at Hot Air has a piece considering the Trump proposal for a pause on immigration from Muslim countries pending some answers on how to not import jihad.  He concludes, drawing on another piece at Circa, that there is ample law and history to support such a move by a sitting President.

The list goes well beyond Carter. Reagan instituted five separate immigration bans, including the 1986 bar against Cubans coming into the states. And Congress has gone much, much further in the past, all with the blessing of the Supreme Court to set precedent. There was the Chinese Exclusion Act and the World War II ban on entry by Jews fleeing the Nazis. Nobody is pointing to those as particularly shining moments in the nation’s history, but in terms of the legal questions there is very little that either Congress or the President couldn’t do absent some drastic new precedent in the courts.

The status of the courts is of course one of the main issues at stake in this year’s election.  With the death of Justice Scalia, a prospective Clinton administration will have the power to install a 5-vote progressive majority on the Supreme Court.  Ms. Clinton has expressed her intention to use that power to create substantial changes to the constitutional order.  This is true especially in terms of revising the Supreme Court’s understanding of the Second Amendment, and in terms of limiting First Amendment freedoms by overturning the Citizens United decision.

She is also likely to want a Court that will find a dramatic new precedent limiting government authority to block immigration.  Since the publication of The Emerging Democratic Majority in 2002, Democrats have formally argued what they had long believed:  that mass immigration from the third world would alter the American voting public enough to ensure a much more left-leaning electorate.  Restricting any future Congress’ or President’s power to limit immigration is very much in the interest of her party, as they believe that they will benefit from importing a ‘new American people,’ more inclined to favor their appeals on election day.

If Trump were to be elected instead, however, the existing vacancy on the Supreme Court would be filled in a different way.  Initially a Trump administration would face a divided court whose ideological balance was not different from the one that has existed for several years.  It would fall to Anthony Kennedy, as the Court’s swing vote, to determine whether or not to uphold existing law and precedent.  Over time, however, the new Republican administration might have the opportunity to replace several Supreme Court Justices.  That would create a more favorable environment for holding that Congress’ and the President’s immigration powers are settled law.

In any case, the matter is an important one, argues former Federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy.

Let’s bear in mind that permitting immigration is a discretionary national act. There is no right to immigrate to the United States, and the United States has no obligation to accept immigrants from any country, including Muslim-majority countries. We could lawfully cut off all immigration, period, if we wanted to. Plus, it has always been a basic tenet of legal immigration to promote fidelity to the Constitution and assimilation into American society — principles to which classical sharia is antithetical….

[I]t is simply a fact that many Muslims accept our constitutional principles and do not seek to impose sharia on our society. They have varying rationales for taking this position: Some believe sharia mandates that immigrants accept their host country’s laws; some believe sharia’s troublesome elements are confined to the historical time and place where they arose and are no longer applicable; some think sharia can evolve; some simply ignore sharia altogether but deem themselves devout Muslims because they remain Islamic spiritually and — within the strictures of American law — culturally. For those Muslims, Islam is, in effect, merely a religion, and as such it deserves our Constitution’s protections. For other Muslims, however, Islam is a political program with a religious veneer. It does not merit the liberty protections our law accords to religion. It undermines our Constitution and threatens our security.

If it is true, as he argues, that there is no right to immigrate to the United States, then no one’s rights are being harmed by laws restricting immigration.  Getting the exact balance right should be a matter for deliberation by Congress and the President.  Nevertheless, it helps to start with the clear understanding that we allow immigration, or not, based on America’s needs.  We have every right to limit immigration that does not serve those needs, and no duty — neither moral nor legal — to admit those who are not in favor of continuing the American project of limited, Constitutional government.