Leaving aside demagogic motives (which may well be at play), the inclusion of green card holders in the ban implies that even those who’ve been through this lengthy and rigorous screening are a threat to the nation. But if that’s true, why wouldn’t fully naturalized citizens who originated from those suspect countries also be considered a threat?

When that implication is combined with the President Trump’s remarks about eventually giving preference to Christian refugees from the Middle East, what we appear to be left with is an order that lays the groundwork for something far more sweeping than a restriction on visas for foreigners from a select group of countries. We have the groundwork for treating American citizens who originated from those countries (or perhaps who just happen to be Muslim) as a uniquely threatening class of citizen — a class subject to special scrutiny, surveillance, and harassment. But of course, when a class of citizen is subject to special scrutiny, surveillance, and harassment, its members are no longer full citizens. They are second-class citizens, with more limited rights than all other, “normal” citizens.

To judge by the rabid reader comments attached to the article on Breitbart announcing the executive order, at least some of Trump’s most passionate supporters crave precisely such an arrangement for Muslims in the United States.