CLAIM: Muslims were banned from immigrating to the United States in 1952 under the provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
FALSE
EXAMPLE: [Collected via e-mail]I keep hearing about a rumor from Donald Trump supporters that uses the 1952 Public Law 414, Chapter 2, Section 212 as a basis for banning Islam in this country. From what I can tell, this has been distorted based off the language. Would this or would this not be a basis of banning Islams from the United States?
ORIGIN:In late 2015 a meme began spreading on social media under the heading "ISLAM WAS BANNED FROM THE USA IN 1952":The meme sharply escalated in popularity following an unprecedented statement from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who on 7 December 2015 suggested that the United States should bar all Muslims from entering the country until such time as lawmakers could "figure out what [was] going on" in the wake of a mass shooting in San Bernardino that had occurred five days earlier.The primarily image-based claim asserted that:ISLAM WAS BANNED FROM THE USA IN 1952, but Obama & the media don't want you to know that.The Immigration and Nationality Act that passed June 27, 1952 revised the laws relating to immigration, naturalization, and nationality for the United States. That act, which became Public Law 414, established both the law and the intent of Congress regarding the immigration of Aliens to the US and remains in effect today.Among the many issues it covers, one in particular, found in Chapter 2 Section 212, is the prohibition of entry to the US if the Alien belongs to an organization seeking to overthrow the government of the United States by "force, violence, or other unconstitutional means."This, by its very definition, rules out Islamic immigration to the United States.This law is being ignored by the White House. Islamic immigration to the U.S. is prohibited under this law because the Koran, Sharia Law and the Hadith all require complete submission to Islam, which is antithetical to the US government, the Constitution, and to the Republic. All Muslims who believe that the Koran is life's guiding principal also believe in total submission to islam & sharia law.To all who claim that Islam is a religion, read the law again ... the law states that Aliens who are affiliated with ANY "organization" that advocates the overthrow of the U.S. government are prohibited.
Simply put, the rumor maintained that Muslims as a group were ineligible for admission to the United States based upon a law that prohibited entry to any alien who "belongs to an organization seeking to overthrow the government of the United States by 'force, violence, or other unconstitutional means.'" The meme didn't directly reference the Islamic State (ISIS) as the organization in question, instead suggesting that Islam itself (particularly because of Sharia law and adherence to it by devout Muslims) was a prohibited group.The law referenced was the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, also known as the McCarran–Walter Act. Its text is available in full at the U.S. Citizenship and Naturalization Services (USCIS) web site, where a preface indicates that the law has "been amended many times over the years, but is still the basic body of immigration law." The meme cited "Chapter 2 Section 212" of the Act, which is subtitled "INA: ACT 212 - GENERAL CLASSES OF ALIENS INELIGIBLE TO RECEIVE VISAS AND INELIGIBLE FOR ADMISSION; WAIVERS OF [INADMISSIBILITY]." Subsection (A) of that section pertains to "Classes of Aliens Ineligible for Visas or Admission," subdivision (3) of which is titled "Security and related grounds." Paragraph (a), subsection (iii) excludes as ineligible for admission the following persons:In general any alien who a consular officer or the Attorney General knows, or has reasonable ground to believe, seeks to enter the United States to engage solely, principally, or incidentally in any activity a purpose of which is the opposition to, or the control or overthrow of, the Government of the United States by force, violence, or other unlawful means.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 was not without critics, among them President Harry S. Truman, who vetoed the bill on 25 June 1952. In a letter titled "Veto of Bill to Revise the Laws Relating to Immigration, Naturalization, and Nationality" and addressed to the House of Representatives, President Truman described the bill's provisions as both antithetical to American values and discriminatory:The greatest vice of the present quota system, however, is that it discriminates, deliberately and intentionally, against many of the peoples of the world ... The desired effect [of selective admission of immigrants] was obtained ... People from such countries as Greece, or Spain, or Latvia were virtually deprived of any opportunity to come here at all, simply because Greeks or Spaniards or Latvians had not come here before 1920 in any substantial numbers.The idea behind this discriminatory policy was, to put it baldly, that Americans with English or Irish names were better people and better citizens than Americans with Italian or Greek or Polish names. It was thought that people of West European origin made better citizens than Rumanians or Yugoslavs or Ukrainians or Hungarians or Baits or Austrians. Such a concept is utterly unworthy of our traditions and our ideals. It violates the great political doctrine of the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal." It denies the humanitarian creed inscribed beneath the Statue of Liberty proclaiming to all nations, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."It repudiates our basic religious concepts, our belief in the brotherhood of man, and in the words of St. Paul that "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free .... for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."
In that letter President Truman further maintained the act's provisions were out of alignment with foreign policy goals, inhibiting immigrants who needed it most from seeking safe harbor in America:The basis of this quota system was false and unworthy in 1924. It is even worse now. At the present time, this quota system keeps out the very people we want to bring in. It is incredible to me that, in this year of 1952, we should again be enacting into law such a slur on the patriotism, the capacity, and the decency of a large part of our citizenry.Today, we have entered into an alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty, with Italy, Greece, and Turkey against one of the most terrible threats mankind has ever faced. We are asking them to join with us in protecting the peace of the world. We are helping them to build their defenses, and train their men, in the common cause. But, through this bill we say to their people: You are less worthy to come to this country than Englishmen or Irishmen; you Italians, who need to find homes abroad in the hundreds of thousands — you shall have a quota of 5,645; you Greeks, struggling to assist the helpless victims of a communist civil war — you shall have a quota of 308; and you Turks, you are brave defenders of the Eastern flank, but you shall have a quota of only 225!
Truman's words seemed exceptionally prescient when he spoke of citizens in countries that had in recent years fallen behind the Iron Curtain:Today, we are "protecting" ourselves, as we were in 1924, against being flooded by immigrants from Eastern Europe. This is fantastic. The countries of Eastern Europe have fallen under the communist yoke — they are silenced, fenced off by barbed wire and minefields — no one passes their borders but at the risk of his life. We do not need to be protected against immigrants from these countries — on the contrary we want to stretch out a helping hand, to save those who have managed to flee into Western Europe, to succor those who are brave enough to escape from barbarism, to welcome and restore them against the day when their countries will, as we hope, be free again ... some 30,000 Rumanians, who have managed to escape the labor camps and the mass deportations of their Soviet masters, have asked our help. These are only a few examples of the absurdity, the cruelty of carrying over into this year of 1952 the isolationist limitations of our 1924 law.
In that letter, President Truman spoke specifically of immigration quotas arranged deliberately to exclude specific nationalities. A large portion of the letter directly addressed Truman's belief that the American way of life ought to be extended to those living under the same totalitarian regimes the U.S. hoped to vanquish. Truman lamented that in "no other realm of our national life are we so hampered and stultified by the dead hand of the past, as we are in this field of immigration."The "ISLAM WAS BANNED FROM THE USA IN 1952" meme proved popular following a period of increasing rhetoric similar to that which Truman decried as discriminatory and outdated in 1952. The meme's basic claim hinged on the tautological assertion that adherence to Islam alone constitutes participation in an "organization seeking to overthrow the government of the United States by 'force, violence, or other unconstitutional means.'" Most major religions involve basic, agreed-upon sets of tenets by which their faithful live, and no widely-accepted understanding of Islam encompasses a prohibition on following the laws of any country or advocates the overthrow of government.In a 10 August 2011 NPR piece titled "Who's Behind the Movement to Ban Shariah Law?", New York Timesinvestigative reporter Andrea Elliott described an effort to enlist the "very arcane and complex subject of Shariah" as a political wedge:Shariah literally means the way to the watering hole and is more commonly referred to as 'the way.' It is, most simply put, the law that guides Islamic beliefs and actions. But when Westerners think of a legal code, they tend to think of a fixed set of laws and Shariah is a lot more fluid than that, in part because there's no governing authoring in Islam. So while Islam's four major schools of law agree on many basic areas of Shariah, there are many areas that lack consensus and there's really a whole spectrum around the world in ways Muslims observe Shariah law. One of the key points is missing in this debate is that [among] Muslims living in non-Muslim countries like the United States, there is broad agreement that Shariah requires them to abide by the laws of the land in exchange for the right to worship freely.
NPR's segment was a response to Elliott's 30 July 2011 article "The Man Behind the Anti-Shariah Movement," which examined why the topic of Sharia law had seemingly appeared from the ether as a controversial subject of political debate. Elliott reported that a "confluence of factors ... fueled the anti-Shariah movement," including "concerns about homegrown terrorism and the rise of the Tea Party" and that the controversy had been cultivated for political purposes:The campaign's air of grass-roots spontaneity, which has been carefully promoted by advocates, shrouds its more deliberate origins. In fact, it is the product of an orchestrated drive that began five years ago in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in the office of a little-known lawyer, David Yerushalmi, a 56-year-old Hasidic Jew with a history of controversial statements about race, immigration and Islam. Despite his lack of formal training in Islamic law, Mr. Yerushalmi has come to exercise a striking influence over American public discourse about Shariah.Working with a cadre of conservative public-policy institutes and former military and intelligence officials, Mr. Yerushalmi has written privately financed reports, filed lawsuits against the government and drafted the model legislation that recently swept through the country — all with the effect of casting Shariah as one of the greatest threats to American freedom since the cold war. Even its leaders concede that American Muslims are not coalescing en masse to advance Islamic law.
Elliott's article also mentioned an individual whose name was linked to December 2015 reporting on Trump's anti-Muslim statements, Frank Gaffney. Statistics cited by Trump in November and December 2015 and credited to Gaffney have since been described as misleading.On 7 December 2015, the Pew Research Center published an article titled "Muslims and Islam: Key Findings in the U.S. and Around the World."A sub-section titled "How Do American Muslims Compare?" presented polling data gleaned from American adherents of Islam pertaining to conflicts of faith and American identity. Noting that "compared with the global survey of Muslims, some key differences emerge[d] between U.S. Muslims and Muslims in other countries" and "[generally,] American Muslims are more at ease in the contemporary world," the polling data organization reported:About six-in-ten Muslims living in the U.S. (63%) say there is no tension between being religiously devout and living in a modern society, compared with a median of 54% of Muslims worldwide. U.S. Muslims are much less likely than Muslims worldwide to say that all or most of their close friends are Muslim (48% vs. global median of 95%).Muslims say there generally is not a conflict between science and religion, compared with a median of 54% globally among Muslims. American Muslims are even more likely than Muslims in other countries to firmly reject violence in the name of Islam. In the U.S., about eight-in-ten Muslims (81%) say that suicide bombing and similar acts targeting civilians are never justified. Across the globe, a median of roughly seven-in-ten Muslims (72%) agrees.Muslims in the U.S. are about as likely as Muslims in other countries to view science and religion as fully compatible. In the U.S., 59% of Muslims say there generally is not a conflict between science and religion, compared with a median of 54% globally among Muslims. American Muslims are even more likely than Muslims in other countries to firmly reject violence in the name of Islam. In the U.S., about eight-in-ten Muslims (81%) say that suicide bombing and similar acts targeting civilians are never justified. Across the globe, a median of roughly seven-in-ten Muslims (72%) agrees.
The meme "ISLAM WAS BANNED FROM THE USA IN 1952" claimed that adherence to Islam and/or Sharia law constituted definitive membership within an "organization seeking to overthrow the government of the United States by 'force, violence, or other unconstitutional means.'" Multiple non-factual statements or implications were presented in the meme, including the notions that all Muslims strictly adhere to Sharia law, that Sharia law is a cohesive faith-based form of governance, that adherence to Sharia law is mutually exclusive with adherence to the laws of the United States, that Islam in some way demands the eventual overthrow of the United States government, or that any "organization" to which Muslims purportedly belong by merit of their faith somehow places them under the provisions of section 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. Not one of those assertions or implications is supported by extant law, precedent, or any accepted interpretation of Islam, United States immigration policy, or the act in question.
LAST UPDATED: 08 December 2015ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 08 December 2015
AmnestyInternational
By Jerry Gordon, NER
