JTA: Elena Kagan: Imagine if a travel ban targeted Israelis

Justice Elana Kagan asked the lawyer defending the president’s travel ban to imagine the same ban if it applied to Israelis.

In her hypothetical challenge during oral arguments on President Donald Trump’s ban on travel from several Muslim majority countries, Kagan asked if a similar ban on Israelis by an anti-Semitic president would be constitutional.

What if “a vehement anti-Semite (who) says all kinds of denigrating comments about Jews” during his campaign is elected president and then issues a travel ban on Israelis, Kagan, who is Jewish, asked Noel Francisco, the solicitor general who was defending the ban, in hearings Wednesday.