What is one to make of the Democratic Convention speech of Khizr Khan, a Pakistani-born Virginia lawyer whose son Humayun was killed in action in Iraq in 2004?
According to Byron York:
Khan’s brief speech wasn’t a finely-detailed case. But he suggested that Trump’s Muslim ban and Mexican border wall proposals are unconstitutional. Specifically, Khan cited the words ‘liberty’ and ‘equal protection of the law’ in suggesting that Trump’s policies violate the Constitution.
But, in fact, “there’s simply no sense in which a border wall violates the Constitution.” There is also “nothing unconstitutional about deporting people who are in the United States illegally.”
York emphasizes that “[a]s far as a Muslim ban is concerned, Trump … amended his proposal to focus on immigration from countries ‘compromised by terrorism.’ But assume that Khan was addressing Trump’s original, more extensive, proposal: a temporary ban on foreign Muslims from entering the United States.”
In fact, the 14th Amendment of the Constitution applies to “all persons born or naturalized” in the United States. It does not refer to foreign persons in foreign countries. Trump made it clear that this ban “would not apply to U.S. citizens, members of the U.S. military and others with a legal right to be in the United States.” Whether one approves or disapproves of Trump’s building a wall, deporting illegal immigrants, and temporarily banning the entry of foreign Muslims, the fact is that Trump’s proposals are not unconstitutional.
In an effort toward clarification, Donald Trump released a statement:
Captain Humayun Khan was a hero to our country and we should honor all who have made the ultimate sacrifice to keep our country safe. The real problem here are the radical Islamic terrorists who killed him, and the efforts of these radicals to enter our country to do us further harm. Given the state of the world today, we have to know everything about those looking to enter our country, and given the state of chaos in some of these countries, that is impossible.
Moreover, Trump reiterated that “Captain Khan, killed 12 years ago, was a hero, but this is about RADICAL ISLAMIC TERROR and the weakness of our ‘leaders’ to eradicate it!”