Expelling the Moriscos

The Expulsion of the Moriscos at the Port of Denía. Vincente Mostre, 1612. Via Wikipedia.

A little clarity from the New York Times:

1. It can't be done.

Putting the policy into practice would require an unlikely act of Congress, said Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor of law at Cornell and a prominent authority on immigration.

Should Congress enact such a law, he predicted, the Supreme Court would invalidate it as an overly restrictive immigration policy under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

“It would certainly be challenged as unconstitutional,” he said. “And I predict the Supreme Court would strike it down.”

2. It's not about Muslims, it's about Cruz.

Mr. Trump has a track record of making surprising and even extreme comments whenever he is overtaken in opinion polls by other Republican candidates – as happened on Monday just hours before he issued his statement about Muslims. A new Monmouth University survey of likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers found that Mr. Trump had slipped from his recent top spot in the state, which holds the first presidential nomination contest on Feb. 1. According to the poll, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas earned 24 percent of support, while Mr. Trump had 19 percent and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida had 17 percent...

3. Cruz knows that.

...some were more careful in their denouncements. Senator Ted Cruz, who has overtaken Mr. Trump in Iowa and has been gaining on him nationally, said: “Well, that, that is not my policy.” The Republican from Texas went on to explain that he has called for a moratorium on refugees from countries where the Islamic State or Al Qaeda control significant territory.

The whole point of the exercise could just as easily be to make everybody forget that Jeb! and Cruz were both calling for the exclusion of non-Christian refugees on equally unconstitutional grounds, oh, about three weeks ago. Now, says Bush, such ideas are "unhinged" and "not serious". To be fair, he has got it right this time.