There's a major nuance with our constitution that is extremely important to understand what it does, and does not, do. The nuance is that the constitution does not grant people freedom of speech, or even directly protect that right. You already inherently have freedom of speech by merit of existing. A government cannot grant you that right anymore than they can grant you the right to think. But what governments can do is to remove rights. The constitution restricts the power of our government to do that.
So the migration case you mention was a good example of this nuance. Congress can ban entry from whatever country they want. We could ban Canadians tomorrow if congress so chose. As for executive orders, the current precedent set is that the president is allowed to ban travel from any group so long as allowing it would be "detrimental to the interests of the United States." So the nuance there is, is Trump banning travel from these nations because they are Muslim majority, or is he banning travel from these nations because travel from these Muslim majority nations is not in the interest of the United States?
He tasked a 50 day review ranking and classifying nations on their migration controls as well as making diplomatic efforts to mutually improve the standards of these nations. After the 50 days he prohibited entry from the countries which were deemed threats, most of which where Muslim majority. Lower courts tried to then claim he did this because these countries were Muslim, and attempted to use his past words against him. The Supreme Court ruled that his words did not override an otherwise valid justification and upheld his order. [1]
---
The big point here is that the constitution can render laws unlawful, but it itself does not directly provide any protections from otherwise legitimate laws. For maybe the clearest example consider Kleindienst vs Mandel [2]. In that case the US chose to prohibit entry to an individual based exclusively on speech that would be perfectly legal if it had been said within the US. This case made its way to the supreme court and they upheld that this action was not a violation of the first amendment. [2] And it should be clear why (though the fact this made it all the way to supreme court belies my notion of obviousness here) - his speech was used against him but within the confines of other valid laws.
So the migration case you mention was a good example of this nuance. Congress can ban entry from whatever country they want. We could ban Canadians tomorrow if congress so chose. As for executive orders, the current precedent set is that the president is allowed to ban travel from any group so long as allowing it would be "detrimental to the interests of the United States." So the nuance there is, is Trump banning travel from these nations because they are Muslim majority, or is he banning travel from these nations because travel from these Muslim majority nations is not in the interest of the United States?
He tasked a 50 day review ranking and classifying nations on their migration controls as well as making diplomatic efforts to mutually improve the standards of these nations. After the 50 days he prohibited entry from the countries which were deemed threats, most of which where Muslim majority. Lower courts tried to then claim he did this because these countries were Muslim, and attempted to use his past words against him. The Supreme Court ruled that his words did not override an otherwise valid justification and upheld his order. [1]
---
The big point here is that the constitution can render laws unlawful, but it itself does not directly provide any protections from otherwise legitimate laws. For maybe the clearest example consider Kleindienst vs Mandel [2]. In that case the US chose to prohibit entry to an individual based exclusively on speech that would be perfectly legal if it had been said within the US. This case made its way to the supreme court and they upheld that this action was not a violation of the first amendment. [2] And it should be clear why (though the fact this made it all the way to supreme court belies my notion of obviousness here) - his speech was used against him but within the confines of other valid laws.
[1] - https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-965_h315.pdf
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleindienst_v._Mandel