Scotus to hear Trump appeal on birthright citizenship-Asians react

By Randall Yip, Executive Editor

(This story is done in partnership with the URL Collective)

Asian American civil rights groups reacted with concern about the potential “grave consequences” of the Supreme Court decision to hear an appeal by the White House on birthright citizenship.

“We have to call it for what it is, which is a strategy to deter immigration and to reshape the United States demographic landscape,” said Cynthia Choi, co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action and co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate during a phone interview with AsAmNews.

The appeal is limited in scope. The justices will hear arguments that three district court judges overstepped their authority when they each temporarily halted the overturning of a centuries old practice to grant citizenship automatically to those born in the U.S.

A ruling in Trump’s favor could enable him to at least partly implement the executive order he signed on inauguration day in January.

However, the high court declined to hear arguments about the constitutionality of birthright citizenship itself, which the U.S. Supreme Court had previously ruled is embedded in the 14th amendment.

“What matters most is that the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment is the same no matter how you look at it,” said Noah Baron, Assistant Director of Litigation at Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC in an email to AsAmNews. “Virtually everyone born here is entitled to citizenship. That’s the meaning now. That was the meaning when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1871. When Congress was debating the Fourteenth Amendment, they said the same thing. It doesn’t matter whether you’re an originalist or a living constitutionalist or anything else.”

The case will be heard May 15, a signal that the justices consider the matter urgent enough to expedite the appeal. A decision is expected by the beginning of summer.

Birthright citizenship has been the law of the land since Wong Kim Ark won his Supreme Court case in 1898. The San Francisco-born Wong sued after immigration officials citing the Chinese Exclusion Act refused to let him back into the United States following his trip to China.

“I think Trump’s repeal of birthright citizenship would harm our communities as a whole, not just immigrants. It will also increase racial profiling and cast even greater doubt on the status of everyday AAPI community members who are already living in fear regardless of their citizenship status,” Choi said.