Birthright Citizenship, ICE Raids, and Asylum: The Government’s Immigration Orders Face Legal Fire
The Trump administration made immigration a core campaign focus and governance issue. Accordingly, President Donald Trump started his second term with a flurry of executive orders targeting immigrant communities and immigration. Each of the orders, especially those attacking immigrants and communities, is facing legal challenges. Here are some of the lawsuits concurrently challenging the federal government’s immigration crackdowns.
Birthright Citizenship
One of President Donald Trump’s first executive orders seeks to end birthright citizenship, which is constitutionally guaranteed. The idea of birthright citizenship means that everyone born in the United States automatically gets citizenship and a U.S. passport.
The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states: “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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Multiple civil rights organizations came together and filed a lawsuit challenging the attack on birthright citizenship since the President signed the executive order. U.S. District Judge Joseph N. Lalpante issued a preliminary injunction, further complicating the Trump administration’s attack on a constitutional right. Judge Laplante is the third judge to issue orders against the order attempting to strip people of birthright citizenship. U.S. District Judge John Coughenour previously challenged the order by issuing a restraining order in January.
Immigrant Arrests in Sensitive Locations
President Trump ended a long-standing practice of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents avoiding sensitive locations. For years, ICE agents were barred from conducting raids and arrests at locations like houses of worship, schools, and hospitals. The rule was enacted to protect people who need medical care, children in schools, and people practicing their constitutional right to be religious.
Dozens of religious groups filed lawsuits against the Trump administration to block this order. The first religious group to file a lawsuit was the Quakers, and the oldest Quaker meeting in the world joined the lawsuit.
A coalition of religious groups is challenging the Trump administration’s change in policy with a lawsuit. The religious groups are equally “unified on a fundamental belief: Every human being, regardless of birthplace, is a child of God worthy of dignity, care, and love. Welcoming the stranger, or immigrant is thus a central precept of their faith practices.”
U.S. District Judge Theodore Chang in Maryland sided with the religious groups in the lawsuit. In a decision, Judge Chang blocked ICE agents from entering houses of worship for Quakers and a handful of other religious denominations.
Shutting Down Asylum at the Border
Civil rights groups and advocates filed a lawsuit in February against the Trump administration’s attempt to shut down asylum procedures at the southern border. The groups argue that the Trump administration’s restrictions on asylum-seeking at the border put families and individuals in danger. Many people seeking asylum are fleeing violence and war. By restricting asylum at the border, the lawsuit argues that people face torture and death upon being sent back to their countries.
“The government is doing just what Congress by statute decreed that the United States must not do. It is returning asylum seekers — not just single adults, but families too — to countries where they face persecution or torture, without allowing them to invoke the protections Congress has provided,” lawyers representing the lawsuit led by the ACLU wrote.
The process of seeking asylum is a legal path for people presenting themselves at the southern border. Congress set it forth, and it has been upheld and protected in courts for generations. That hasn’t stopped the federal government from trying to circumvent the rule of law to shut it down.
