Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Monday refused to comment on whether Donald Trump‘s call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the U.S. is constitutional.
“Can you ban an entire religious group from entering the country?” Yahoo News anchor Katie Couric asked. “Is that constitutional?
“I think the question you asked is a question that could come before this court. I can’t preview what my decision would be. I can’t answer a hypothetical question when it may turn into a real question.”
Ginsburg said she requires lower court rulings, lawyers’ briefings and legal commentary before judging issues of magnitude like banning Muslim emigration.
“So before I can answer a question in a real case, I have to be armed with all that information. I can’t just shoot from the hip and say, ‘This is how I think it should come out.’”
Ginsburg added she takes potential discrimination seriously, however, having encountered anti-Semitism in her youth.
“I can say I am sensitive to discrimination on any basis because I have experienced that upset,” she said, recalling a lawn sign reading “no dogs or Jews allowed.” “I looked at that sign and said, ‘I am a Jew, but I’m an American, and Americans are not supposed to say such things.
“America is known as a country that welcomes people to its shores, all kinds of people. That is America to me.”
Trump said during Sunday’s presidential debate his proposed ban on Muslims entering the U.S. has “morphed into extreme vetting” of immigrants from global trouble spots.
“The Muslim ban is something that has in some form morphed into extreme vetting from certain areas of the world,” the GOP’s presidential nominee said at Washington University in St. Louis.
Ginsburg sparred with Trump in July, calling the billionaire a “faker” and pressuring him to publicly release his tax returns.
Trump responded by calling the justice a “disgrace,” adding she should resign from the nation’s highest court. Ginsburg later apologized for the remarks.