Washington, DC – Below is a column by Maribel Hastings from America’s Voice en Español translated to English from Spanish. It ran in several Spanish-language media outlets earlier this week:
This July 4, the United States commemorates 250 years of independence amid one of the most challenging periods in its recent history. It is not merely a politically and ideologically divided nation, but one in which a Republican administration is waging a relentless battle against immigrants and minorities, who have been—and continue to be—indispensable to the history and progress of this country.
One of President Donald Trump’s attacks was to eliminate, by executive order, birthright citizenship for babies born to undocumented parents—a move the Supreme Court rejected by a 6-3 vote on Tuesday.
Citizenship by birth is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1868, which states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote on behalf of the majority that “citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ We keep that promise today.”
Trump vowed to keep trying through legislation.
His administration is also seeking to undermine the electoral process by gerrymandering districts to eliminate seats held by minority lawmakers and replace them with white Republicans. The Supreme Court has dismantled protections for minority voters enshrined in Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Trump also repeats false claims that voter fraud is rampant and that non-citizens are voting illegally.
Under this pretext, there is a looming threat to deploy military personnel and immigration agents at polling places during the November 3 midterm elections—even though doing so is illegal. The goal is to intimidate voters of color and naturalized citizens.
The United States is a nation shaped by waves of immigrants throughout its history. Their labor has left a profound mark. They have been used and exploited when convenient, and attacked and demonized when it is politically expedient, as in the case of Trump and his MAGA base.
All immigrants contribute greatly to the economy through their labor in key industries and by paying billions of dollars in income, sales, and property taxes. They buy real estate, goods, products, and services. They start businesses, employ Americans, and have given their lives in various wars.
And in the case of undocumented immigrants, they help sustain the financial viability of programs to which they contribute—such as Social Security and Medicare—even though they cannot benefit from them due to their immigration status.
Last week, the Supreme Court dealt a severe blow to TPS for Haitians and Syrians by allowing Trump’s ordered termination to proceed. But the ruling affects the 1.3 million beneficiaries of the program, which grants them work authorization and protection from deportation.
By removing these protections, they become vulnerable to detention and deportation. The United States—as well as the states and cities where they live—stands to lose the $29 billion they contribute to the economy each year and the nearly $8 billion they pay in combined federal, state, and local taxes.
The same is true for DACA recipients, whom Trump also seeks to strip of protections and has even deported. According to a report by FWD.us, “Dreamers already contribute $76 billion annually to the U.S. economy through their wages and pay nearly $24 billion annually in combined federal, payroll, state, and local taxes.”
“In 2022 alone, households of undocumented immigrants paid $46,800 million in federal taxes and $29,300 million in state and local taxes,” according to the American Immigration Council.
The government disregards these contributions but spends $240 billion on its detention and deportation apparatus, violating rights and diverting funds and personnel from key agencies to carry out immigration enforcement.
Trump has reduced legal immigration, undermined asylum laws, refugee policy, and H-1B work visas. The aim is to curb the influx of immigrants of color.
Reducing immigration is not good news for the United States.
On this Independence Day, when immigration and immigrants are under attack, those who support Trump’s anti-immigrant policies should be very careful what they wish for. The United States’ progress, competitiveness, and economic stability depend largely on the migrant workers they are now once again rejecting.
The original Spanish version is here.
