CA Attorney General Rob Bonta courtesy oag.ca.gov
Suzanne Potter, producer/reporter, California News Service, a bureau of Public News Service.
All babies born in California are still automatically American citizens and the state attorney general is vowing to keep it that way, despite a mixed ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court.
The justices limited the ability of lower-court judges to issue nationwide injunctions, including those against President Donald Trump’s ban on birthright citizenship, while court challenges are pending. The decision still allows the ban to take effect in 30 days in the 28 states that were not part of the lawsuit.
Rob Bonta, California’s Attorney General, did sue and said he still expects to win the case.
“I’m hopeful that the court will see that a patchwork of state injunctions where birthright citizenship stands for some states but not others, would inevitably create administrative chaos and spur questions we don’t have the answers to,” Bonta explained.
Whether Trump’s ban on birthright citizenship is constitutional is also being considered by lower courts. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution states anyone born on American soil is automatically a citizen. The President argued babies should only be citizens if one of their parents is already a citizen.
Bonta noted the original 1898 case reaffirming birthright citizenship concerned Wong Kim Ark, a Chinese American man born in San Francisco to immigrant parents.
“Babies born in California should rightfully be citizens,” Bonta contended. “We’re a nation of immigrants. It’s our legacy and it’s our identity, especially here in California, home to more immigrants than any other state, including my mother who emigrated from the Philippines.”
Nationwide injunctions from lower courts have so far kept dozens of Trump’s executive orders from taking effect. A similar injunction also kept President Biden from expanding protections for foreign-born people brought to the U.S. as children.
