California civil rights group joins fight against Trump's birthright citizenship changes

Legal advocates in California are behind the fight to stop President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship through a class action suit filed on behalf of the babies of noncitizens.

The Asian Law Caucus is part of a coalition of civil rights groups — and the only one based in California — representing those who would be denied citizenship under the order, be they the children of undocumented immigrants or temporary residents, such as foreign students on visas.

“We're asking the court to protect the constitutional rights of our specific class members who happen to be babies located all over the country,” said Aarti Kohli, executive director of the Asian Law Caucus.

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A federal judge in New Hampshire on Thursday stopped the Trump order from taking effect. The Asian Law Caucus and other groups such as the ACLU and Democracy Defenders Fund brought the challenge last month as a way to block the order.

An alternative method was needed after the Supreme Court last month limited the ability of judges to issue nationwide injunctions against executive orders, including the birthright citizenship one issued in January. Kohli says class actions are procedurally more complex.

“With a simple nationwide injunction, you just ask the court to block the policy, but with a class certification, you have to prove that there's so many affected people that you can't sue individually,” Kohli said. “We have to show that everyone faces the same legal issues.”

While the legal path is different, the desired outcome is the same: stopping Trump from subverting what has been the law of the land for more than a century.

Birthright citizenship

The 14th Amendment adopted in 1868 stated that all people born on U.S. soil were citizens. Birthright citizenship was reaffirmed 20 years later in a landmark case brought by a Chinese American Californian named Wong Kim Ark, who had been denied re-entry into the U.S. on the grounds that, while he had been born in the U.S., his parents were not citizens.

Kohli said all these years later, the consequences would be dire if the Trump order took effect. A tier of stateless children could be denied Social Security numbers and passports and basic rights like healthcare and nutrition assistance, she said.

“You'd be creating a multi-generational underclass of people born here but with no legal status, no path to citizenship, no ability to work legally,” Kohli said. “These kids grow up American in every way, except on paper, but they're permanently excluded from participating fully in society or the economy.”

Kohli says Trump’s order would hit California — and Asian communities — especially hard.

“As the fastest growing racial minority in the country, and a community that has the largest number of immigrants, this order would disproportionately impact our communities,” Kohli said.

Kohli and other legal advocates are gearing up for a tough legal battle.

The Trump administration is expected to appeal this week's ruling.

The deadline to appeal is Thursday.

Kohli expects that one way or another, the case will end up before the Supreme Court. When that will be is unknown, throwing families who’d be affected by the order into a state of uncertainty.