Groups condemn US Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship

SAN DIEGO (CMC):

The Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA) has “forcefully” condemned the United States Supreme Court’s decision in partially staying preliminary injunctions on President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order for Caribbean and other immigrants, sending the issue back to lower courts for further action.

In a six-to-three decision, the Supreme Court of the United States last Friday sided with President Trump, granting his request to narrow the multiple nationwide injunctions that had blocked his executive order to end birthright citizenship.

HBA’s Executive Director, Guerline Jozef, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that the Supreme Court’s decision that limits nationwide injunctions “clears a dangerous path for the Trump administration’s attacks on birthright citizenship to proceed in large parts of the country”.

Jozef noted that the court did not decide whether the 14th Amendment, which has guaranteed birthright citizenship since 1868 and was affirmed in 1898, protects these children.

“That fundamental issue remains pending and threatens to escalate this humanitarian and constitutional crisis,” she warned, calling on the US Congress to pass federal legislation reaffirming unconditional birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment.

She also called on state governments to challenge the executive order in federal courts to maintain safeguards for all children.

Additionally, Jozef urged human-rights groups to launch “coordinated legal challenges, provide rapid-response legal aid, and mobilise communities to defend vulnerable families”.

Caribbean immigration advocates and legislators have also condemned the Supreme Court’s decision.

“By narrowing nationwide injunctions, the court has opened the door for Trump to advance his dangerous and unconstitutional attempt to end birthright citizenship –a right clearly guaranteed by the 14th Amendment for more than 150 years,” Murad Awawdeh, president and chief executive officer of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella coalition of over 200 immigrant and refugee groups in New York.

“This same Supreme Court never thought to say that the many national injunctions and stays that it upheld against the Biden administration were outside the judiciary’s power to enact,” he added.

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), chaired by Caribbean-American Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, who represents the 9th Congressional District in New York, also condemned the US Supreme Court’s ruling.

“By limiting the federal judiciary’s ability to issue nationwide injunctions against the Trump administration’s extremist and authoritarian policies, the conservative super majority on the Supreme Court is once again bending the law to serve President Trump instead of defending the Constitution and the American people,” said CBC in a statement.

New York Attorney General Letitia James said the US Supreme Court’s decision “is a profound and disappointing setback for the families who now face tremendous uncertainty and danger, for the millions of people who rely on the courts to protect their constitutional rights, and for the fundamental rule of law”.

“Every child born on US soil is a citizen of this country, no matter which state they are born in. This has been the law of the land for more than a century,” said James, noting however, that the case “is not over”.