A nonprofit that supports immigrant rights in Central Illinois is urging immigrant families not to panic following Friday‘s U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
The court’s conservative majority determined that judges can't issue a nationwide injunction blocking President Donald Trump's executive orders.
The high court largely set aside whether the president actually can ban automatic citizenship for children born in the U.S.
Madelyn Cox-Guerra is a staff attorney with the Normal-based Immigration Project. She represents about 35 immigrant families across Central and Southern Illinois from her office in Champaign.
Cox-Guerra said the court’s non-answer on the legality of birthright citizenship, which was enshrined in the 14th Amendment shortly after the Civil War, leaves a great deal of uncertainty.
“[The Trump administration has] the option to start enforcing the executive order in whatever way that they can, which will at the very least cause confusion,” Cox-Guerra said in an interview on WGLT’s Sound Ideas.
She is concerned the courts may ultimately allow the blanket order to stand across much or all of the country.
“I do think it’s an attempt to limit the types of individuals that can become citizens, whether that be by race, by specific types of nationality. I do think that’s incredibly unfortunate,” Cox-Guerra said.
She's offering advice for immigrant families who are worried the Trump administration's executive order may ultimately be upheld or could lead to a patchwork of laws across the country, if federal judges approve more narrow restrictions.
“Don’t panic, try to get your documents if you can. Be prepared for what the lower courts are going to say next,” Cox-Guerra said.
Sonny Garcia of Bloomington is co-founder of the group Latinos United for Change and Immigrant Rights [LUCIR]. The group issued a statement calling the ruling “a betrayal of the Constitution and a direct attack on the rights of immigrant families.”
LUCIR plans to hold emergency community briefings and a “Know Your Rights” town hall in the coming weeks.
Garcia is calling on local elected officials to commit to protect all U.S.-born children, regardless of immigration status.
“We’re just going to keep on pushing and keep on organizing to resist as much as we can. At least on the ground in Illinois luckily we’ve got a state government that has committed to stand up for what’s right,” Garcia said.
Garcia said he's confident Illinois will uphold birthright citizenship and that could lead to an influx of immigrant families from states where the president's order remains in place.
“This is just putting even more strain on an already strained budget and that’s just another attack tactic that’s happening from the federal administration just to cause chaos in our country," Garcia said.
Illinois is one of more than 20 states that sues to block the order. Attorney General Kwame Raoul said he remains confident their lawsuit will prevail.
“Even after today's decision, birthright citizenship – a rule that has governed our country since the end of the Civil War – remains the law in Illinois,” Raoul said in a statement.
