NEW YORK, CMC – Caribbean immigration advocates and legislators on Friday condemned the US Supreme Court docket’s resolution to partially keep preliminary injunctions on President Donald Trump’s govt order concerning birthright citizenship for Caribbean and different immigrants, sending the difficulty again to decrease courts for additional motion.
In a 6-3 resolution, the Supreme Court docket of the US (SCOTUS) on Friday sided with Trump in Trump v. CASA, granting his request to slender the a number of nationwide injunctions that had blocked his Government Order to finish birthright citizenship.
“By narrowing nationwide injunctions, the court docket has opened the door for Trump to advance his harmful and unconstitutional try to finish birthright citizenship –a proper assured by the 14th Modification for greater than 150 years,” Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella coalition of over 200 immigrant and refugee teams in New York, instructed the Caribbean Media Company (CMC).
“This similar Supreme Court docket by no means thought to say that the various nationwide injunctions and stays that it upheld in opposition to the Biden administration have been outdoors the judiciary’s energy to enact,” he added. “Right this moment’s ruling reveals that the Supreme Court docket now operates as an extension of Donald Trump’s political will, empowering Trump to escalate his anti-immigrant agenda with fewer authorized checks and threatening the security, dignity, and way forward for hundreds of thousands of Individuals.
“Trump has made it clear that he’ll cease at nothing to tear immigrant households aside and rewrite the very that means of who will get to belong on this nation,” Awawdeh continued. “We is not going to stand by as Trump and his enablers undermine our Structure to attempt to erase these rights of our communities.”
The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) – chaired by Caribbean-American Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, who represents the ninth Congressional District in New York – additionally condemned the US Supreme Court docket’s ruling.
“By limiting the federal judiciary’s skill to challenge nationwide injunctions in opposition to the Trump administration’s extremist and authoritarian insurance policies, the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court docket is as soon as once more bending the regulation to serve President Trump as an alternative of defending the Structure and the American individuals,” mentioned CBC in a press release.
“Whereas this ruling makes it more durable for courts to dam the illegal insurance policies of the Trump administration absolutely, the judicial combat to guard birthright citizenship and our basic rights will proceed,” CBC vowed. “For greater than a century, a cornerstone of our regulation has been that these born on US soil are Americans. President Trump’s illegal makes an attempt to nullify birthright citizenship are in clear violation of the Fourteenth Modification, which established African Individuals as equal residents below the regulation.
“President Trump has completely no authority to jot down Americans out of the Structure unilaterally, and any problem to that notion is totally fanciful,” it continued.
New York Legal professional Basic Letitia James mentioned the US Supreme Court docket’s resolution on Friday “is a profound and disappointing setback for the households who now face large uncertainty and hazard, for the hundreds of thousands of people that depend on the courts to guard their constitutional rights, and for the elemental rule of regulation.
“Each baby born on US soil is a citizen of this nation, irrespective of which state they’re born in,” she mentioned. “This has been the regulation of the land for greater than a century.”
However James mentioned the case “isn’t over,” expressing confidence that the case defending birthright citizenship will in the end prevail.
“My coronary heart breaks for the households whose lives could also be upended by the uncertainty of this resolution,” she mentioned. “My fellow attorneys common and I’ll proceed to defend the Structure and the frequent values that unite us.”
On January 21, Legal professional Basic James and 18 different states sued to dam the president’s “unconstitutional govt order” purporting to finish birthright citizenship.
On February 13, the court docket granted the coalition’s movement for a preliminary injunction, which the US Court docket of Appeals later upheld for the First Circuit.
On Friday, the US Supreme Court docket, the nation’s highest court docket, partially stayed the preliminary injunction, sending the difficulty again to the decrease courts to slender the scope of their order.
In line with the Washington-based Cato Institute, the 14th Modification grew to become a part of the US Structure 150 years in the past, in July 1868.
Amongst different issues, the institute mentioned the modification “enshrined our conventional frequent regulation apply of granting citizenship to these born in the US who’re topic to its legal guidelines—particularly, it assured that the lately freed slaves and their descendants could be residents.”
The institute additionally mentioned the 14th Modification utilized to the kids of immigrants, together with Caribbean immigrants, “as its authors and opponents understood on the time.”
However the Cato Institute famous that Trump’s immigration place paper “famously endorsed an finish to birthright citizenship.”
