Senate rushes to thwart Trump-inspired Muslim bans

Muslims gather to pray

Sen. Patrick Leahy is ironically one step closer to using a nuclear safety bill to make it easier for nuclear weapons-seeking terrorists to enter the country.

The Senate Judiciary Committee succeeded Thursday in passing a resolution saying, "The United States must not bar individuals from entering into the United States based on their religion, as such action would be contrary to the fundamental principles on which this Nation was founded."

The resolution passed along bipartisan lines with a 16-4 majority vote.

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The Vermont Democrat was motivated to add his amendment to the Nuclear Terrorism Conventions Implementation and Safety of Maritime Navigation Act of 2015 after a recent anti-terrorism proposal suggested by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Trump, who has led all other Republican presidential hopefuls since August, has said the U.S. should temporarily ban Muslims from entering the country. The policy would last until officials come up with a coherent strategy to combat the Islamic State group and other Islamic terror networks.

"Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine,” Trump said in a statement released Tuesday, WND reported. "Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont

Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont

Critics of Leahy's amendment said the wording was "unprecedented," given that law enforcement personnel must look into all aspects of an immigrant's beliefs when conducting background checks, the Washington Free Beacon reported Thursday.

Committee member Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama criticized those who voted in favor of the resolution and offered his own.

"It is the sense of the Senate that the individual right of the American people to keep and bear arms, as recognized by the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States [...] is among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty and deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition, such that any violation of this precious right would be contrary to the fundamental principles upon which this Nation was founded," the amendment reads.

Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, David Vitter of Louisiana, and Ted Cruz of Texas were the only other members who joined Sessions in rejecting Leahy's resolution.

"The adoption of Leahy Amendment would constitute a transformation of our immigration system," Sessions said in his opposing statement. "In effect, it is a move toward the ratification of the idea that global migration is a 'human right,' and a civil right, and that these so-called 'immigrants’ rights' must be supreme to the rights of sovereign nations to determine who can and cannot enter their borders."

Eric Posner, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, made a similar case in a Dec. 8 interview with U.S. News & World Report.

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Posner said the Supreme Court "has held consistently, for more than a century, that constitutional protections that normally benefit Americans and people on American territory do not apply when Congress decides who to admit and who to exclude as immigrants or other entrants," WND reported.

A Bloomberg Politics/Purple Strategies PulsePoll conducted Tuesday night found two-thirds of Republican primary voters support Trump's plan to temporarily halt Muslim immigration into the U.S., WND reported.