DT people have been citing a law that supposedly gives DT the right to exclude classes
of aliens from entry, as he "deems necessary."
DT supporters have been claiming a 1952 law allows DT to suspend entry of any “class” of aliens he deems necessary. Here is the law, followed by the Washington Attorney General’s response.
The 1952 statute
Section 1182(f): “Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate” (emphasis added).
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444371/donald-trump-executive-order-ban-entry-seven-muslim-majority-countries-legal
Washington Attorney General’s response:
Defendants may argue the President has power to suspend the entry of any class of aliens when their entry is detrimental to the interests of the United States. See 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f). Such an argument, however, is unavailing. Congress enacted Section 1182 in 1952, well before it passed section 1152. Whatever section 1182 meant when it was adopted, the enactment of the INA amendments in 1965, including section 1152, marked a “profound change” in the law by abolishing the national origin quota system, establishing a uniform quota system, and prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race and national origin. Olsen v. Albright, 990 F. Supp. 31 (D.D.C. 1997) (citingPub. L. No. 89-236). Passed alongside the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the legislative history of the INA Amendments of 1965 “is replete with the bold anti-discriminatory principles of the Civil Rights Era.” Olsen, 990 F.Supp. at 37. It is inconceivable that, in enacting anti-discrimination provisions in 1965, Congress intended to leave the President with the ability to adopt the same sort of overtly discriminatory measures Congress was outlawing. Accepting the President’s approach would take us back to a period in our history when distinctions based on national origin were accepted as the natural order of things, rather than outlawed as the pernicious discrimination that they are. Cf. Chae Chan Ping v. U.S., 130 U.S. 581, 595, 606 (1889) (sustaining the Chinese Exclusion Act because the Chinese “remained strangers in the land,” constituted a “great danger [to the country]” unless “prompt action was taken to restrict their immigration,” and were “dangerous to [the country’s] peace and security”)
(p. 24)
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3438931/WA-AG-TRO-Request-as-Filed.pdf
More on the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1965
The Hart–Celler Act amended the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (McCarran-Walter Act), while it upheld many provisions of the Immigration Act of 1924. It maintained per-country limits, which had been a feature of U.S. immigration policy since the 1920s, and it developed preference categories.[7]
One of the main components aimed to abolish the national-origins quota. This meant that it eliminated national origin, race, and ancestry as basis for immigration.
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