The Trump Administration has prohibited entry into the United States by nationals of 13 primarily Muslim-majority countries. The President’s proclamations purport to be data-driven, focused on countries that fail to comport with information-sharing and identity-management protocols; but it is clear the proclamations were jerry-rigged to target Muslims. As we argued at the United States Supreme Court on behalf of members of Congress, the President’s proclamations cannot be squared with either our Constitution’s system of separation of powers or the First Amendment’s promise of religious neutrality.

The best way to protect the nation’s security, while also upholding foundational American values, is to respect the Constitution’s fundamental protections and the laws passed by Congress. The Framers of our Constitution took pains to create a system that denied the President the power to both make the law and then execute it, recognizing that such concentrated power threatens liberty. The Framers gave the legislative power, including the authority to make rules concerning immigration, to Congress, ensuring that control of our borders would not be left to the “absolute dominion of one man.”

CAC strongly supports a clean markup of H.R. 2214, the NO BAN Act, which includes three critical components to fighting the Muslim Ban by: (1) repealing two iterations of the Muslim Ban; (2) amending the INA’s nondiscrimination provision to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on religion and to apply all non-discrimination protections to immigrant and non-immigrant visa applicants alike; and (3) limiting overly broad executive authority to issue future bans by, among other things, imposing stricter reporting requirements to Congress. CAC would also support an amendment updating Section 4(a) of the Act to address Presidential Proclamation 9984, which was issued by the President after the introduction of the bill. The NO BAN Act is a critical step towards ensuring that Muslims and other communities are not subjected to unlawful and unconstitutional discrimination.