The Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA) said Friday's Supreme Court's decision to limit nationwide injunctions in President Donald Trump's birthright citizenship order is "disgraceful."
“Today’s Supreme Court decision to reject lower court injunctions provides an avenue for individual states to decide who is and is not a U.S. Citizen," said MIRA Executive Director Elizabeth Sweet.
President Trump has committed countless attacks on America’s immigrant community, Sweet said "and the Supreme Court allowing this misguided policy to move forward without pause while the lower courts rule is disgraceful. The courts have recognized the 14th Amendment for over a century and this decision will not stop the MIRA Coalition from continuing to fight for the rights of immigrants in Massachusetts and across the country."
MIRA's Chief of Staff Sarang Sekhavat told NEPM, the court's decision will play out differently, state to state.
"Part of the problem we're going to start seeing is, what's going to happen with children born in one state?," Sekhavat said. "Let's say the family moves to another state and maybe they need some assistance with SNAP or health insurance — is that child considered a citizen or not?"
There will eventually be a ruling on whether Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship is constitutional or not Sekhavat said.
“The vast majority of people assume that the response is going to be, 'no, this isn't constitutional,’ Sekhavat said, “but even then you're going to have this mess of how do you sort out, now, the citizenship status of all these kids who've been born in the interim?”
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell said Friday the U.S. Supreme Court's decision is "disappointing" and introduces additional procedural hurdles.
“I am proud to defend birthright citizenship and the rights of those born in the United States, which are guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. I am confident our case will be successful, and the President’s blatantly unconstitutional executive order will ultimately be struck down,” Campbell said.
The Massachusetts American Civil Liberties Union joined the ACLU of New Hampshire, Maine and others — as well as the Legal Defense Fund, Asian Law Caucus, and Democracy Defenders Fund — in filing a lawsuit challenging the Supreme Court's decision.
“For more than 125 years, birthright citizenship has made the United States the strong and dynamic nation that it is. The Trump administration wants to end that right and create a permanent subclass with no vote, no voice, and no due process protection,” said Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts. “We simply won’t let that happen, and are using every tool in our toolkit to defend birthright citizenship.”
