Democrats to Introduce Bill to Block Trump's Attack on Birthright Citizenship

As the Supreme Court weighs whether to allow the Trump administration to massively restrict birthright citizenship Rep Delia Ramirez D-Ill is attempting to use Congress s power of the purse to block the administration s attack on constitutionally protected rights In January Trump signed Executive Order which would prevent children born in the United States and its territories from automatically becoming U S citizens if their parents are undocumented immigrants or on a temporary visa such as a work or learner visa Trump s order was instantly blocked by lower courts on the basis of the th Amendment which guarantees citizenship for all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof As the Supreme Court hears oral arguments on the situation Thursday Ramirez recounted The Intercept she will introduce a bill prohibiting the use of federal funds to carry out Trump s executive order and reaffirming birthright citizenship This issue is personal for Ramirez who is the only member of Congress born to parents who were undocumented at the time of her birth My mother and father fled poverty in Guatemala and my mother was pregnant with me when she came to this country and I was born in Cook County Hospital in the city of Chicago I still live in the same society declared Ramirez The idea that Trump would call to question who s American and who s not it s absolutely very personal to me Ramirez announced it s clear that Trump s executive order isn t about immigration it s about upholding white supremacy a fact further evidenced by his administration s move to end temporary status for Afghan and Haitian immigrants then right now offer refugee status to white South Africans It s pretty blatant that this is an attack that is seeded on white supremacy and racism she disclosed Read Our Complete Coverage The War on Immigrants The Issue of Injunctions The oral arguments before the Supreme Court involve a episode challenging several lower court decisions blocking the executive order from going into effect nationwide The Trump administration is arguing that lower court judges don t have the power to issue nationwide injunctions and that these rulings should be limited in scope if manageable to the specific people who brought cases Five pregnant women in Maryland brought cases against the Trump administration fearing for the citizenship status of their future children Related The Pregnant Immigrants Fighting Trump s Bid to End Birthright Citizenship The administration is also challenging the ability of states to bring these cases on behalf of their residents Four states have brought lawsuits against the administration s executive order Washington Arizona Illinois and Oregon The consequences of the Supreme Court s decision in this episode could prove wide-ranging for civil liberties in the United States and challenges to the Trump administration s sweeping agenda legal experts stated No national injunction means that either we get checkerboard justice where rights exist in particular places and not in others announced Margo Schlanger a law professor at the University of Michigan Law School or we get this huge tax on the organizations that are trying to vindicate these rights that makes them litigate all over the place Schlanger announced the court may decide to weigh-in on the substantive issue of birthright citizenship focus on the issue of nationwide injunctions or both Sam Erman another professor at the University of Michigan Law School thinks it s highly unlikely the Supreme Court will issue a ruling on birthright citizenship at this stage Erman noted that the court has not had a full briefing on the issue of birthright citizenship It would be a very hurried decision if they did it he mentioned and one where they would be sort of stripping themselves of a bunch of materials There s also the fact that this is largely considered a settled legal issue In United States v Wong Kim Ark the court established that children born in the United States to children of noncitizens are citizens Wong Kim Ark decided in is largely considered settled precedent It s a pretty decided issue that the Supreme Court has itself basically presumed the conclusion without giving it much thought in prior cases commented Erman The Supreme Court s precedent pretty much settles it The history is all in one direction on it The text is pretty clear But as shown by the Supreme Court s overturning of Roe v Wade legal precedents can fall stated Kailin Wu an attorney at Haynes Novick Kohn Immigration in Washington D C The court is looking at opportunities to review previous decisions a lot more often now than they have been in the past stated Wu I m not going into oral arguments on Thursday feeling confident that this is going to come out in favor of maintaining the status quo Erman reported it will also be worth watching how the court handles the secondary legal issue of nationwide injunctions Particular justices have been signaling for a while that nationwide injunctions ought to be reined in in various way revealed Erman And this seems like a manageable moment to do that One thing that s at stake is the separation of powers between the different branches of regime On the flip side justices could be concerned about maintaining the balance of power between the judiciary writ-large Congress and the presidency One thing that s at stake is the separation of powers between the different branches of leadership announced Erman In theory it should be up to Congress to change the statutory scheme that grants birthright citizenship at birth and it should only be the Supreme Court that gets to say what the constitutional law is Erman notes that outright banning nationwide injunctions in this matter would get messy fast If they were to say Well now this only applies in the district where you filed you would suddenly have people filing in every district in the country all at once he declared or if you stated this only applies to the individuals who filed you d get a flood of lawsuits by individuals seeking the same restoration This scenario Schlanger announced would make it significantly harder for organizations to fight for civil rights because they would have to battle in every jurisdiction potentially leaving the United States with a patchwork of different citizenship rules There will be a bunch of states in which courts have mentioned the birthright citizenship EO is illegal or ineffective and then there will be other districts other states where that hasn t happened she explained So you have different rules governing the citizenship rights of newborns depending on what state they were born in Wu mentioned that his clients living in the U S on work visas are terrified about what the Trump administration s executive order could mean for their families For example Wu revealed that his clients on H- B visas are sometimes here for to years before they receive their green cards Now it s unclear what could happen if they end up having children Are their kids automatically going to get a visa Are they going to need to apply for that I think there are a lot of questions mentioned Wu You may end up in scenarios where people who are here on temporary status and who have kids who are born here are inevitably going to leave at several point Legal scholars revealed to watch whether justices ask more about birthright citizenship or nationwide injunctions as an indicator of which issue they re more likely to address And as invariably all eyes are on Chief Justice John Roberts who is widely considered to be a swing vote on these issues However Erman mentioned regardless of how the justices eventually rule it shouldn t be seen as an indicator that the Supreme Court is on the side of people fighting the administration The administration is on very weak substantive ground here explained Erman and so were the courts to uphold what the administration is trying to do That s a strong signal that they re going to be I think deferential to lots of alleges by the administration Withholding Funding In Congress Ramirez isn t holding out hope that her Republican colleagues will help her protect birthright citizenship I ve had selected off-the-record conversations with a couple of them who commented No that s absolutely crazy if you were born here you re a United States citizen she commented But the complication is that has not truly been lived out in remarks or general statements Still Ramirez thinks it s pivotal to take a stand for this fundamental right In addition to affirming the constitutional right of all children born in the United States to automatically obtain U S citizenship the bill uses Congress s spending powers to block the administration s actions The decree would prohibit any federal funds from being used to carry out Trump s executive order So even if the Supreme Court ruled that Trump could move forward implementing the executive order his administration would be blocked from using federal funding to create new systems to identify who is or isn t a citizen change someone s citizenship status or deport them If Ramirez s statute can pass in the House and find backing in the Republican-controlled Senate it would render Trump s campaign against birthright citizenship an order in name only We re going to have a strong showing Over members of Congress are original co-sponsors to this bill commented Ramirez People are really riled up to fight back and understand that attempting to erode birthright citizenship is literally attempting to erode our democracy itself The post Democrats to Introduce Bill to Block Trump s Attack on Birthright Citizenship appeared first on The Intercept