--- title: Donald Trump Muslims: Legal Experts Condemn Plan description: The incendiary proposal to ban Muslims entering the U.S. was swiftly denounced by Trump's rivals in both parties canonical: https://time.com/4140215/donald-trump-muslims-constitution/ author: NBC News article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-08T13:03:16.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T13:11:22.797Z article:section: Politics og:title: Here's What Legal Experts Think of Donald Trump's Plan to Ban Muslims og:description: The incendiary proposal was swiftly denounced by Trump's rivals in both parties og:url: https://time.com/4140215/donald-trump-muslims-constitution/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt313adcf77da2943f/6988744b5f570f6a63b1eb50/donald-trump7.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Donald Trump og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's What Legal Experts Think of Donald Trump's Plan to Ban Muslims twitter:description: The incendiary proposal was swiftly denounced by Trump's rivals in both parties twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt313adcf77da2943f/6988744b5f570f6a63b1eb50/donald-trump7.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here's What Legal Experts Think of Donald Trump's Plan to Ban Muslims by [NBC News](https://time.com/author/nbc-news/) ## NBC News Dec 8, 2015 1:03 PM UTC  Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks during the 2016 Republican Jewish Coalition Presidential Candidates Forum in Washington, DC, Dec. 3, 2015. Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks during the 2016 Republican Jewish Coalition Presidential Candidates Forum in Washington, DC, Dec. 3, 2015.Saul Loeb—AFP/Getty Images by [NBC News](https://time.com/author/nbc-news/) ## NBC News Dec 8, 2015 1:03 PM UTC Donald Trump proposed a system of religious discrimination for U.S. immigration policy on Monday, advocating a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” according to a written campaign statement. The incendiary proposal was swiftly denounced by Trump’s rivals in both parties, and as a policy proposal it is probably illegal. “I believe Trump’s unprecedented proposal would violate our Constitution,” said Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe. “Both the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses and the equality dimension of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment…” [_Read the rest of the story from our partners on NBC News_](http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/law-experts-weigh-donald-trumps-plan-ban-muslims-n476041) [**Exclusive: Donald Trump Says He Might Have Supported Japanese Internment**](http://time.com/4140050/donald-trump-muslims-japanese-internment/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4140215/donald-trump-muslims-constitution/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4140215/donald-trump-muslims-constitution/"},"headline":"Here's What Legal Experts Think of Donald Trump's Plan to Ban Muslims","datePublished":"2015-12-08T13:03:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T13:11:22.797Z","description":"The incendiary proposal was swiftly denounced by Trump's rivals in both parties","url":"https://time.com/4140215/donald-trump-muslims-constitution/","keywords":["2016 Election","2016 Election topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt313adcf77da2943f/6988744b5f570f6a63b1eb50/donald-trump7.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"NBC News","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/nbc-news/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt313adcf77da2943f/6988744b5f570f6a63b1eb50/donald-trump7.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Donald Trump","caption":"Donald Trump","creditText":"Saul Loeb—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2016-election/","name":"2016 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4140215/donald-trump-muslims-constitution/","name":"Here's What Legal Experts Think of Donald Trump's Plan to Ban Muslims"}}]}] ```