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:
Even if the Supreme Court rules against the Trump administration in Trump v. Barbara, which seeks to eliminate birthright citizenship by executive order, it remains part of an immigration strategy riddled with measures that attack children, whether they are citizens or undocumented.
The ruling is expected at any moment before the Supreme Court begins its summer recess.
When arguments for and against Trump’s executive order were heard, the justices appeared to lean against using an executive order to alter a provision 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.” This amendment was adopted at the end of the Civil War to clarify the citizenship status of newly freed slaves born in the United States.
Against that backdrop, the president and his team argue that those born in the United States to undocumented parents or to people who are temporarily in the country as tourists, students, or seasonal workers should not automatically obtain citizenship. In fact, USCIS prepared a guidance document explaining how the executive order would be implemented.
Under the guide, there are two groups of children born in the United States who would not be considered citizens: those whose mother is undocumented and whose father is neither a citizen nor a legal permanent resident; and those whose mother has legal but temporary status, whether on a student, work, or tourist visa.
These U.S.-born babies would not be able to obtain a Social Security card or passport and would be considered undocumented and subject to detention and deportation.
Trump and his team—led by his most anti-immigrant advisor, Stephen Miller—sought to strip U.S.-born children of their rights by creating a subclass. That effort reveals their cruelty and their ultimate goal: to redefine what it means to be American.
They refuse to accept demographic changes and have embarked on a crusade to “whiten” a nation where combined minorities will outnumber Anglo-Saxons in just over 20 years. In fact, this is already happening in jurisdictions across the country.
Trump, his team, and his supporters believe that minorities are taking away their jobs, benefits, and political power, and on that basis, they have waged a war against immigrants—allegedly to remove “criminals” and the “worst of the worst”—while focusing on workers vital to our economy.
To remove them, they render them undocumented by canceling programs that grant work permits and protection from deportation, such as TPS. They detain and deport them even after decades here, leaving behind citizen children or deporting them together; they imprison families in detention centers under deplorable conditions, causing trauma and perhaps irreversible harm to many children.
Now, expedited deportations without a court hearing can take place anywhere in the country, not just at the border.
Or they impose obstacles, such as delays in renewing work permits for DACA recipients, putting them at risk of losing their jobs and becoming easy targets for detention and deportation.
Obstacles such as the recently announced nearly 80% increase in naturalization application fees and the elimination of financial assistance prevent low-income individuals from applying for citizenship and the rights it confers, including the right to vote.
As a result, this gives rise to attempts to undermine these minorities’ voter participation and to falsely allege that there is widespread voter fraud, which is used to justify, for example, deploying military personnel or federal agents to polling places, even though it is illegal.
The reach of these policies extends to the states. For example, The Washington Post reported that “families in Tennessee with undocumented children suffering from serious illnesses or severe disabilities are being asked to make a difficult decision: leave the state program that pays for life-saving medications and treatments, or stay and have their children reported to immigration authorities.”
According to the story, a new state law pushed by Republicans requires verifying the immigration status of those receiving public benefits—even if they are children with serious conditions who have no alternative to the state’s Children’s Special Services program. Parents have received letters warning them to leave the program or face being reported to a state agency that collaborates with federal authorities.
In short, this is a veritable crusade to erase immigrants, minorities, and even children born in the United States.
The original Spanish version is here.
