Looming citizenship crisis faces AANHPI communities awaiting SCOTUS ruling

APIA VOTE

Asian Americans at the Supreme Court protest Donald Trump's attempt
to do away with birthright citizenship guaranteed by the 14th Amendment

With the United States' 250th anniversary approaching, birthright citizenship, a cornerstone of the Constitution, is in danger of being stripped away by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court. 

If they rule to end this constitutional right the fallout will be catastrophic: a staggering 6.4 million children born in the United States, including could be stripped of legal status by 2050. 

Within the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) community, the impact is uniquely devastating. The number of undocumented Asian births is projected to experience a massive, five-fold explosion —driven by families who followed every rule on work and student visas, only to watch their US-born children rendered stateless or unauthorized.

After hearing arguments this Spring, SCOTUS is expected to issue their ruling as early as today (June 18) or later this month, just in time for July 4th.

Deciding who belongs

For generations, the rule of the land was simple and beautifully egalitarian: if you are born here, you are one of us. It didn’t matter where your parents came from, what language they spoke, or what their paperwork looked like. The 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause was built precisely to ensure that America could never again create a permanent, multi-generational underclass.

RELATED: ACLU gives strong defense of birthright citizenship

 Now, the conservative legal apparatus is attempting to rewrite that history. They argue that the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" requires a child's parents to owe direct "political allegiance" to the United States—essentially engineering a system where citizenship is inherited by legal status rather than guaranteed by birthplace.

Defenders of the Constitution — led by civil rights champions like the American Civil Liberties Union — are hitting back with clear, historical substance. Anyone standing on U.S. soil is bound by US laws and subject to US jurisdiction. It is a standard we inherited from English common law and enshrined after the Civil War to permanently bury the racist legacy of the Dred Scott decision.

Looming crisis for the AANHPI community

This isn’t an abstract debate for law school textbooks; it is a direct threat to our families. While the largest absolute number of people affected would be Latino, recent research from Penn State University highlights a terrifying twist: Asians would see the sharpest relative growth in unauthorized births of any immigrant group.

• THE VISA TRAP: The policy uniquely penalizes Asian immigrants residing legally on temporary work (like H-1B) or student visas. Their children, born in American hospitals, would suddenly be denied a defined legal status.

• MATH OF EXCLUSION: The data projects a chilling 41 unauthorized births per 1,000 Asians without permanent legal status—a rate more than double the projected trajectory for Latino communities.

• AN INVISIBLE WALL: Families who have done everything "the right way" would find their American-born children barred from higher education, locked out of professional careers, and stripped of basic equality before the law.

The possible end to birthright citizenship would pose a steep relative risk to the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. While Latinos face the largest raw numbers, AAPIs experience the highest relative impact. 

STOP AAPI HATE

A recent study by Stop AAPI Hate projects that if birthright citizenship ends, the number of Asian "unauthorized" births could increase five-fold, with a rate of 41 unauthorized births per 1,000 unauthorized Asian residents—more than double the rate for Latinos.

This disproportionate impact exists because the policy primarily targets not just undocumented immigrants, but also children of temporary visa holders (such as H-1B workers and international students), from countries like India, China, and the Philippines. In total, approximately 3.6 million Asian Americans—including those who are undocumented, seeking asylum, or on temporary work and student visas—live under the shadow of this legal battle.

Erasing our past

What makes this conservative push so bitter for our community is that we already fought this battle — and won it — over a century ago. In 1898, the landmark Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark explicitly settled this issue. Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents. When the government tried to deny his re-entry to his own country, the Supreme Court ruled that his birth on US soil made him an unconditional citizen, regardless of his parents' status.

By entertaining executive actions to bypass the 14th Amendment, the current conservative-majority SCOTUS isn’t just looking at the future — they are trying to erase our past and at the same time, revive their pre-Civil Rights Act past. They are threatening to turn a system built on equality into a dangerous, two-tiered caste system.

As the high court deliberates, the core identity of what it means to be "Born in the USA" hanging in the balance. For millions of future AANHPI kids, the edge we are looking over has never been n steeper.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. If you find this perspective interesting, please repost.

Radical US Supreme Court eviscerates the Voting Rights Act

Communities of color will have a harder time electing one of their own after the SCOTUS ruling.

It’s a dark day for American democracy. In a move that feels like a punch to the gut for those fighting for a seat at the table, the Supreme Court has once again signaled that the Voting Rights Act is more of a suggestion than a shield.

The Court’s 6-3 decision Wednesday in Louisiana v. Callais — decided along the usual ideological fault lines — handed a win to those who want to keep the status quo, and a major loss to the AAPI and Black communities who are just looking for a fair shake in the voting booth.

The 6-3 vote was predictable. The conservative GOP majority ruled again putting personal idealogy above precedent. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett were in the majority overwhelming Justices Elena Kagel, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Writing for the majority, Justice Alito essentially argued that Louisiana’s attempt to create a second majority-Black district relied too heavily on race. In the eyes of the conservative wing, trying to fix racial underrepresentation is, ironically, unconstitutional racial stereotyping.

'Colorblind' means blind to reality

We know what this means. Whether it’s the Vietnamese American hubs in the Gulf Coast or the Chinese and Filipino communities in Houston and Atlanta, or the South Asian suburbs in Silicon Valley, it means the Court has given a green light to map-makers to slice and dice our communities until our collective voice is just a whisper. As the dissenters noted, when you stop looking at race in a country where race still defines the political landscape, you aren’t being "colorblind"—you’re just being blind to reality.

Kagan argued that the majority is creating a "Catch-22" for states. If they don't consider race, they violate the Voting Rights Act; if they do, the Court strikes it down as a racial gerrymander.

The dissenters warned that this ruling makes it nearly impossible for minority communities — including our rapidly growing AAPI neighborhoods — to prove that their votes are being diluted. By making the legal bar so high, the Court is effectively telling these communities: "Your growth doesn't equal power."

“The consequences will extend far beyond Louisiana. Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial group in the country, and we are growing fastest in the South, where today’s decision gives legislators the most cover to draw us out of political power that our communities are fighting hard to build," states Asian Law Caucus' Executive Director Aarti Kohli.

“When the Voting Rights Act is undermined, Black voters are harmed first. But the damage won’t stop there. The Supreme Court has gutted one of the last protections we have against racial discrimination in our democracy. It puts the political power of Asian Americans and communities of color at risk," Kohli continued.

By making it harder to use the VRA to protect minority districts, the Court has given a green light to map-makers to slice and dice our communities until our collective voice is just a whisper. As the dissenters noted, when you stop looking at race in a country where race still defines the political landscape, you aren’t being "colorblind"—you’re just being blind to reality.

What does this mean for the 2026 midterms and beyond? For our community, it’s all about the "Cracking," a gerrymandering tactic that splits a cohesive group of voters (based on political party, race, or community interest) across multiple districts to dilute their voting power. By dividing this population, the group becomes a minority in each district, preventing them from electing their preferred candidates.

By making it nearly impossible to challenge maps that divide our growing populations in Texas, Georgia, and Florida, the Court is essentially trying to keep the "bamboo ceiling" firmly attached to the halls of power. When you divide a vibrant AAPI neighborhood across three different districts, you ensure that our specific needs—from language access to anti-hate legislation—never get a champion in Congress.

In California where a quarter of AAPIs in the US reside, the biggest immediate risk is at the city and county levels (like in San Jose, Oakland, or Los Angeles), where "Chinatowns" or "Little Saigons" can be split between districts to dilute their influence.

“We see what this means in practice: communities are unfairly split for partisan gains. A Chinatown carved between three districts," says the Asian Law Caucus. "That is how political power is taken — by design, with impunity, and now with the Supreme Court’s blessing. It means communities of color end up represented by politicians who don’t look like them, don’t know them, and don’t have to listen to them."

AAPI voters are currently considered "influential" in six of California’s 52 congressional districts. The ruling makes it harder to defend these lines if they are challenged as being "too racial" rather than "partisan."

View from the edge

The ruling in Louisiana v. Callais is just the latest blow in a nearly 15-year calculated  campaign by the Roberts Court and the powers that put them on the bench, to dismantle the Voting Rights Act. Legal experts and civil rights leaders often describe this as "death by a thousand cuts."

There is hope because some states -- like California and New York -- are crafting their own Voting Rights Acts but there is already a target on these laws. The conservative wing of the SCOTUS is already signaling that if these state laws focus "too much" on race to fix representation, they might strike those down, too.

So, what does this mean for the 2026 midterms and beyond? For our community, it’s all about the "Cracking," a gerrymandering tactic that splits a cohesive group of voters (based on political party, race, or community interest) across multiple districts to dilute their voting power. By dividing this population, the group becomes a minority in each district, preventing them from ever electing the candidates who might best represent their common interests and perspective.

By making it nearly impossible to challenge maps that divide our growing populations in Texas, Georgia, and Florida, the Court is essentially trying to keep the "bamboo ceiling" firmly attached to the halls of power. When you divide a vibrant AAPI neighborhood across three different districts, you ensure that our specific needs—from language access to anti-hate legislation—never get a champion in Congress.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. 

Supreme Court questions Trump regime's arguments against 'birthright citizenship'

Hundreds of people demonstrated at the Supreme Court.

ANALYSIS

It was a scene unlike any in the 237-year history of the Supreme Court. On April 1, the high court heard arguments in Trump v. Barbara, a case that could dismantle the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship. But the real story wasn't just the law — it was the atmosphere.

In a move that sent shockwaves through the capital, Donald Trump personally attended the arguments. Sitting in the front row, his presence felt less like a show of interest and more like a physical weight on the proceedings. To many observers, it was a blatant attempt to intimidate the Justices on their own turf—a "hush" falling over the chamber as the Commander-in-Chief stared down the bench.

The plaintiffs

The plaintiffs in Trump v. Barbara are a nationwide class of children born on US soil to immigrant parents, represented by three named individuals — Barbara, Susan, and Mark — who are using pseudonyms to protect their identities. They are challenging a Trump administration executive order aimed at denying birthright citizenship.

• Barbara: A Honduran asylum applicant living in the US since 2024, who feared retaliation.
• Susan: A Taiwanese citizen residing in Utah who was on a student visa when her child was born in April 2025.
• Mark: A Brazilian applicant for permanent residence living in Florida whose wife is undocumented and gave birth to their son in March 2025.

General Counsel D. John Sauer led the charge for the Trump regime, arguing that birthright citizenship is a "gift" that has been misapplied. He contended that "subject to the jurisdiction" implies a "political allegiance" that children of undocumented immigrants simply don't possess.

Sauer’s argument hit a disastrous snag when Justice Sotomayor pressed him on how this "allegiance" test would apply to Native Americans. In a stunning gaffe, Sauer appeared to stumble over the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act, momentarily suggesting that the citizenship of indigenous peoples might also be subject to federal "re-evaluation" under his new criteria. 

The courtroom went cold; it was a moment that laid bare the radical nature of the government's position. 

Cecilia Wang, representing the plaintiffs for the ACLU, wasn't deterred by the presidential glare. She grounded her argument in the 1898 Wong Kim Ark precedent and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.

"The Constitution does not have an 'unless' clause for those the President finds inconvenient," Wang argued. Outside the court, she was even more blunt: "This isn’t just an attack on immigrants; it’s an attack on the very definition of what it means to be American. You cannot rewrite the 14th Amendment with a Sharpie."

Skeptical justices

Justices across the ideological spectrum, including the activist conservatives who have been accused of being a rubber stamp for Trump policies, appeared broadly skeptical of the administration’s position.

Chief Justice Roberts pushed back against the "new world" argument, noting that while the world may change, "we have the same Constitution."

When Sauer pointed out that the US is one of the few countries to have birthright citizenship, Justice Kavanaugh questioned “(why) we try to interpret American law with American precedent based on American history.” “[W]hy should we be thinking about,” he asked, the “many other countries in the world (that) don’t have this?”

Justice Sotomayor expressed concern over the potential for the order’s logic to be used retroactively in the future, despite current administration claims.

Neil Gorsuch expressed disdain for the government's reliance on "Roman law sources," which he noted were far removed from the 1868 intent of the 14th Amendment.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett questioned the feasibility of the order, asking how the government would adjudicate "intent to stay" at the time of birth, noting that such a standard could be difficult to apply even to U.S. citizens.

Justices across the political spectrum frequently emphasized the "plain meaning" of the Constitution, viewing the Citizenship Clause as straightforward and unequivocal.

After arguing in behalf of birthright citizenship, the ACLU's Ceclia Wang addressed the demonstrators outside the SCOTUS building.

Views from the edge

If you strip away the high-minded talk about "jurisdiction," the view from the edge is clear: this is about racial demographics, power, and the ballot box.

Look closer at the broader strategy. This isn't just about an obscure legal clause; it’s a foundational piece of a larger effort to reshape the American electorate thereby appeasing the White supremacists who form a vocal segment of Trump's followers. 

The math is simple:

New immigrants and their first-generation children have historically leaned Democratic. By challenging the citizenship of those born here, the Trump administration isn't just "securing the border"; they are effectively attempting to prune the future voter rolls before they even exist.

This fits a pattern we’ve seen with the push for citizenship questions on the census and tighter registration rules. If you can change who counts as a citizen, you change who gets to vote, how districts are drawn, and who holds power for the next fifty years.

By framing birthright citizenship as a "loophole," the administration is signaling that American identity is a privilege to be granted by the state, rather than a right guaranteed by the soil. We see this philosophy in action already: White South Africans are welcomed with open arms but those from so-called "S--thole countries," are being deported.

While the administration frames this as a "national security" necessity, the reality is a raw political calculation. They aren't just trying to stop people from coming in; they're trying to make sure that those who do stay never get a seat at the table.

As Trump exited the courtroom, the legal community was left to process a day where the line between executive power and judicial independence was stretched to its breaking point. The ruling is expected in late June or early July, just in time for the "American experiment" to celebrate its 250th birthday.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. 

Who is Cecilia Wang, the lawyer who will defend 'birthright citizenship' at the Supreme Court

Cecillia Wang, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union and a second-generation American, will argue against Donald Trump's attempt to get rid of birthright citizenship in the landmark case, Trump v. Barbara, at the Supreme Court tomorrow (April 1).

“This is the case of the century — the stakes are unfathomably high. Can a president of the United States unilaterally end birthright citizenship by executive order — overriding more than 150 years of settled constitutional law, and redefining who is recognized as American at birth? Absolutely not,”said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero.

“Cecillia Wang is one of the country’s great litigators, which is why she’s the ACLU’s top lawyer. She has decades of experience fighting government overreach, including two trial victories against Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s racial profiling and contempt of court. Now, she’s up against a more formidable adversary as this case is a linchpin to Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s agenda.

        FYI: Go deeper into the arguments for birthright citizenship

"Our clients are in the best possible hands with Cecillia Wang and this incredible co-counsel team presenting arguments — they will do all it takes to make sure birthright citizenship remains a cornerstone of our democracy.”

Wang was born in Oregon, the daughter of immigrants from Taiwan.  Her own citizenship was made possible by the repeal of racially discriminatory immigration laws through the enactment of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, and by the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship guarantee. Those reforms grew directly out of the anti-slavery and civil rights movements and expanded who has citizenship and belonging in the United States.

The groups will argue that the administration’s assault on birthright citizenship — the legal principle guaranteed by the 14th Amendment that every baby born in the United States is a U.S. citizen — flouts the Constitution’s dictates, longstanding Supreme Court precedent, a statute passed by Congress, and fundamental American values.

“It’s deeply troubling that we must waste precious judicial resources relitigating what has been settled constitutional law for over a century,” said Aarti Kohli, executive director of Asian Law Caucus, and co-counsel.

“Every federal judge who has considered this executive order has found it unconstitutional. If implemented, this policy would force all parents — including U.S. citizens — to prove their immigration status just to get a birth certificate or Social Security number for their baby, inevitably leading to racial profiling based on names, appearance, or accent.”

Wang personal history as a second-generation Asian American which informs her advocacy.

Earlier in her 20-year career, Wang directed the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, which won cases involving immigration detention, racial profiling, and discriminatory state and federal immigration laws.

During the first Trump administration, she worked on successful challenges to the Muslim ban, family separation policies, and the attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. She also led successful litigation against former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

“No president can change the 14th Amendment’s fundamental promise of citizenship,” said Wang. “For over 150 years, it has been the law and our national tradition that everyone born on U.S. soil is a citizen from birth. The federal courts have unanimously held that President Trump’s executive order is contrary to the Constitution, a Supreme Court decision from 1898, and a law enacted by Congress. We look forward to putting this issue to rest once and for all in the Supreme Court this term.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. 

in 2026: Will the Supreme Court rule against birthright citizenship?

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA ILLUSTRATION

If you thought 2025 was crazy, 2026 will not offer any relief for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.

As the radical conservative US Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments the question of brithright citizeshp (iTrump v. Barbara) by summer 2026, the potential end of birthright citizenship isn't just a legal debate; it's an existential threat to the Asian American community—the very community that fought for and won this right over a century ago.

This new attack on birthright citizenship repeats our country’s history of targeting and excluding Asians,” said Bethany Li, executive director of Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund,“We already won this fight more than a century ago. But no matter the gains, unfortunately being Asian in America means constantly having to fight for our right to be here. Asian Americans are coming together once again to defend our right to citizenship and to call this country home."

        READ the full AALDEF amicus brief here

For those of us keeping watch from the edge, the current assault on birthright citizenship isn't just another headline—it’s a direct hit on a legacy our community fought to build. In 2026, the battle over Executive Order 14160 has reached the Supreme Court, and for Asian Americans, the stakes feel like a dangerous echo of the past.

”The administration’s push rests on a narrow, radical rewrite of the 14th Amendment. They’re zeroing in on the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," claiming it requires political allegiance that temporary visa holders or undocumented parents supposedly don’t have, says Li.

Behind the legal jargon is a clear political goal: to end what they call "birth tourism" and strip automatic citizenship from children born to those without "lawful permanent" status. While lower courts initially blocked the order, a 2025 Supreme Court ruling against nationwide injunctions has left us with a confusing "patchwork" of rights across different states.

If the Court tosses out the 14th Amendment’s "bedrock" principle, the children of US citizens and immigrants, even those with the proper documents, will be vulnerable. 

Here is who stands to lose:

Children of Legal visa holders

While much of the political rhetoric targets undocumented immigrants, Trump''s 2025 executive order explicitly targets legal immigrants on temporary visas.

H-1B and F-1 Families: Asian Americans dominate high-skill work and student visa categories. Under current proposals, children born to parents on H-1B (work) or F-1 (student) visas would no longer be recognized as US citizens at birth.

A "Stateless" Generation: For many Indian and Chinese families facing decades-long green card backlogs, their US-born children could become "stateless"—lacking citizenship in the only home they’ve ever known while potentially ineligible for their parents' home-country citizenship.

        RELATED: A look back on 2025, the year racism became normalized

Future Political Power: Asian American advocacy groups like Stop AAPI Hate warn that ending birthright citizenship is a direct attack on the future political power of our community.

Second-Class Status: Without citizenship, these children would be denied the right to vote, run for office, or serve on juries.

Access Denied: These newborns could be blocked from essential lifelines, including Medicaid, SNAP, and WIC, creating a permanent "underclass" within the AAPI community.

Think you're safe because you're already a citizen? Think again.

If birth certificates are no longer enough to prove citizenship, every parent—regardless of status—will face new, expensive hurdles to prove their child belongs.

We’ve seen this movie before. Any system that questions citizenship at birth invites racial profiling against those perceived as "perpetual foreigners."

What’s powering the DOJ's challenge?

For the AANHPI community, this isn't a new fight; it's a hundred-year-old wound that's been ripped oopen again.

We must remember Wong Kim Ark, the son of Chinese immigrants who, in 1898, took his case all the way to the Supreme Court and won birthright citizenship for all. Today, organizations like AALDEF, Asian Americans Advancing Justice and the Asian Law Caucus are back in the trenches, filing amicus curie and joining lawsuits to ensure that this historically radicaly SCOTUS doesn't erase over 150 years of progress.

y empowering government officials to question people’s citizenship status, the order opens the door to discriminatory and arbitrary government interference in people’s daily lives, opines the Brennan Center for Justice. "This problem won’t just be limited to the children denied citizenship under the order: Under the new legal regime the order would create, everyone would be vulnerable to having their citizenship questioned."

The 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause grants birthright citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," establishing that nearly anyone born on US soil, regardless of parents' status (even undocumented immigrants), automatically becomes a citizen, a principle reaffirmed by Supreme Court cases like United States v. Wong Kim Ark. 

This amendment was crucial for giving citizenship to formerly enslaved people after the Civil War, overturning the Dred Scott decision, and ensures equal protection under the law, though limited exceptions exist for children of diplomats or enemy forces

The administration’s push rests on a narrow, radical rewrite of the 14th Amendment. They’re zeroing in on the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," claiming it requires political allegiance that temporary visa holders or undocumented parents supposedly don’t have.

Behind the legal jargon is a clear political goal: to end what they call "birth tourism" and strip automatic citizenship from children born to those without "lawful permanent" status. While lower courts initially blocked the order, a 2025 Supreme Court ruling against nationwide injunctions has left us with a confusing "patchwork" of rights across different states.

In plain, everyday language, the push to end birthright citizenship is just another battlefront in the Trump administration's overall to  fight the myth of "white displacement" by keeping Whites in the majority that carries with it, power and privilege.

A host of legal scholars and civil rights groups, including the ACLU and several states, believe the Court will likely strike down the executive order. Today, organizations like AALDEF, Asian Americans Advancing Justice and the Asian Law Caucus are back in the trenches, filing amicus curie and lawsuits to ensure that SCOTUS doesn't erase over 150 years of progress.

I hope they're right but I'm not holding my breath. This radical activist Supreme Court with its six conservative Justices led by Chief Justice John Roberts has astounded legal experts by showing that they are not against overruling precedents in order to "legalize" the far-right agenda of Donald Trump.

Critics of the Supreme Court argue it's increasingly politicized, too conservative, lacks transparency, suffers from legitimacy issues due to ethics concerns, and oversteps its bounds, leading to a perception that law is just "politics by other means" and undermining its role as an impartial arbiter, with concerns about judicial overreach, lack of accountability, and profound disagreement on key issues like abortion and presidential power.

As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted, the decision “will disproportionately impact the poor, the uneducated, and the unpopular—i.e., those who may not have the wherewithal to lawyer up and will all too often find themselves beholden to the Executive’s whims.”

SCOTUS will hear arguments in the Spring and a  ruling is expected by the summer of 2026 will decide if America remains a place where, as one advocate put it, "no matter where you come from ... within a generation you belong."

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. 

Birthright citizenship still in effect for now, but its future is uncertain

The great grandson of Wong Kim Ark protests the SCOTUS ruling.

"The legal upshot of the Supreme Court’s monumentally disastrous decision in Trump v. CASA (more commonly known as 'the birthright citizenship case') is chaos," reads the lede of the Nation's coverage of Friday's ruling by the activist jurists of SCOTUS.

"Utter legal chaos. In its ruling on Friday, the court’s usual six monarchists granted Donald Trump’s request to reexamine various nationwide injunctions preventing Trump and Stephen Miller from implementing their plans to revoke birthright citizenship to any American who doesn’t happen to be white."

 

I couldn't say it any better. Asian American legal advocates agree.

“Because of (the) 6-3 decision by the Supreme Court to limit nationwide injunctions, we now live in a country where some children would get citizenship and otherswouldn’t, largely depending onwhich circuit court they live near," says Niji Jain, legal director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF). 

"Birthright citizenship is enshrined in the US Constitution, yet the administration is now empowered to continue its campaign to strip that right. Despite the unanimous response from all federal courts who have heard this issue to enterinjunctions preserving birthright citizenship,some children born in this country are now at risk of becoming stateless.”

In a scathing dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor reminded her conservative peers to read the Constitution again. It clearly 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.”

She recognizes that this decision opens the door the court to a Trump-ordered elimination of birthright citizenship.

Even more ominous is that the ruling could be applied to other Trump orders, even if they are against the law. The power of the courts to curb actions of the executive branch has been significantly diluted.

“This Court endorses the radical proposition that the President is harmed, irreparably, whenever he cannot do something he wants to do, even if what he wants to do is break the law,” Sotomayor writes.

The Trump administration’s malicious attack on birthright citizenship continues to spread fear, anger, and confusion across immigrant communities. That includes the 3.6 million Asian Americans who are either undocumented, seeking asylum, or are in the US on student and work visas (e.g., H-1Bs).

The High Court's ruling means lower courts will have to determine to what extent, if any, the administration’s blatantly unconstitutional executive orders, including the one about birthright citizenship, can go into effect on a case-by-case basis.

 FYI: A copy of the court’s opinion is available here.

The decision took issue with the scope of the interim relief but did not disturb the fact that three District Courts concluded that the executive order is likely unlawful.

“Let me be clear: this case was never about the merits of the birthright citizenship executive order, it remains unconstitutional” explained John C. Yang, president and executive director of Advancing Justice | AAJC. “Birthright citizenship is a cornerstone of our constitution. The administration knows they have little chance of winning on this issue. Instead, they used the lives of millions of immigrants as a poker chip in an effort to curtail nationwide injunctions, which have been one of the best tools we have to hold this administration accountable for unlawful actions,” Yang said.

With the Administration refusing to challenge the opinions of three different courts on the blatant unconstitutionality of this executive order, the Court today allows them to continue to try to sidestep these three court orders blocking a ban to birthright citizenship. The executive order represents an unprecedented and dangerous overreach of executive authority. It is a fundamental attack on the principles that have defined America for over two centuries. 

“The rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution belong to everyone in this country, not just those whose state attorneys general had the courage to stand up to this President’s anti-democratic agenda,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Within 24 hours of the SCOTUS ruling Bonta joined a coalition of 19 other state Attorneys General suing Donald Trump.

In their lawsuit, the Attorneys General argue that the Trump's attempt to unilaterally end birthright citizenship violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution and Section 1401 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and should be immediately blocked from going into effect while litigation proceeds. In its decision, the Supreme Court announced a new standard for nationwide injunctions, sending consideration of the scope of the injunction back to the lower courts. The decision states that the executive order cannot go into effect for 30 days.

“The Supreme Court’s decision allows the lower courts to further consider the scope of the district court's nationwide injunction — which we believe is clearly necessary to provide full relief to the states," said Bonta. "We remain hopeful that the courts will see that a patchwork of injunctions is unworkable, creating administrative chaos for California and others and harm to countless families across our country. The fight is far from over, and we will continue working to ensure this unlawful, anti-democratic executive order never has the chance to be implemented.

“This decision potentially leaves many families unprotected against the Administration’s unlawful attack on birthright citizenship,” said Thu Nguyen, Executive Director of OCA. “Ever since the landmark case of the US v. Wong Kim Ark, the Asian American community has been at the frontlines of the legal fight to affirm birthright citizenship. Despite this setback, we will not stop,” says Nguyen.

The SCOTUS decision makes it easier for the court, now acting as the Trump administration's enabler, to continue its ultimate quest to eliminate birthright citizenship.

Birthright citizenship, guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, grants citizenship to anyone born within the United States, regardless of their parents' immigration status. This principle was affirmed in the landmark case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark, where the Supreme Court ruled that a child born in the US to Chinese immigrants was a citizen.

In essence, birthright citizenship, as established by the 14th Amendment and upheld in the Wong Kim Ark case, ensures that individuals born in the US, including those of Asian descent, are granted citizenship, regardless of their parents' immigration status. 

However, Trump's Department of Justice attorneys argue that the 14th Amendment applies only to children of slaves and shouldn't be granted to generations of children born in the US to parents of immigrants from around the world.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor strongly dissented the SCOTUS ruling.

Sotomayor warns that the decision by the conservative Justices will have an impact beyond the birthright citizenship debate.

“The Court’s decision is nothing less than an open invitation for the Government to bypass the Constitution,” she writes.

“No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates. Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from law-abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship.”

What the ruling has done was essentially create two Americas, the 22 states which  abide by the three lower court injunctions and those to which they don't apply.

“The rule of law is not a given in this Nation, nor any other,” Sotomayor writes in her dissent. “It is a precept of our democracy that will endure only if those brave enough in every branch fight for its survival.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X or at the blog Views From the Edge. Now on BlueSky.

Race matters, Jackson, Sotomayor give eloquent, angry defense of affirmative action

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the conservative majority.

OPINION

Even though the US Supreme Court's ruling overturning affirmative action was expected, it didn't lessen the anger that still rose up Thursday morning. I'm furious.

The Supreme Court released their decision Thursday saying that Harvard's admission policy discriminated against Asian students applying to the school and ruled that the University of North Carolina's use of race to achieve a diverse student body was against the Constitution.

The vote was 6-3 in the complaint against UNC with the conservative justices in the majority. In Harvard's case, the vote was 6-2 with Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson recusing herself because she was until, recently, a member of Harvard’s board of overseers.

The complaints against both schools was filed by Students for Fair Admissions, a questionable group headed by anti-affirmative action activist Ed Blum, who has been trying to end the policy for decades. In the case against Harvard, SFFA claimed that the school's affirmative action policy discriminated against Asian American applicants, who never showed up in court to testify.

The gist of the SCOTUS rulings was that schools could not use race as a factor in evaluating students applying for admission.

Personally, race helps define who I am. People who say they are color-blind -- and that includes the six conservative justices -- don't see me. The SCOTUS majority is saying my life experiences as a Filipino American does not matter.

To be clear, in the cases of Harvard and UNC, race is simply one of many factors used in evaluating student applicants, much like family income, a GPA, test scores and extra-curricular activities are factors. To say race doesn't matter, the Court erases a major part of my life story that forms my world view, my personality, my values. To say race doesn't matter, the Court majority says I don't matter.

FYI: Read the US Supreme Court ruling.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the two women of color on the Court and both beneficiaries of "affirmative action" programs, in their scathing dissenting views, say it better than I can.

Sotomayor warned the decision will have a "devastating impact" on the United States. The SCOTUS majority's "vision of race neutrality will entrench racial segregation in higher education because racial inequality will persist so long as it is ignored."

In the Harvard case, Sotomayor wrote “that race can no longer be used in a limited way in college admissions,” the Court basically “cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter.”

Sotomayor, a Puerto Rican who grew up in low-income housing projects and benefited from affirmative action policy herself, wrote in defense of the UNC admission policy of using race as one of several factors in evaluating student applicants to the public university. 

"The majority’s vision of race neutrality will entrench racial segregation in higher education because racial inequality will persist so long as it is ignored," she wrote. "Despite the Court’s unjustified exercise of power, the opinion today will serve only to highlight the Court’s own impotence in the face of an America whose cries for equality resound."

Jackson's no less fiery dissent of the UNC ruling, was a masterclass in the history of racism and affirmative action. Her dissenting opinion will likely be used in educating future lawyers.

"Our country has never been colorblind. Given the lengthy history of state-sponsored race-based preferences in America, to say that anyone is now victimized if a college considers whether that legacy of discrimination has unequally advantaged its applicants fails to acknowledge the well documented “intergenerational transmission of inequality” that still plagues our citizenry," writes Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.

Jackson continues: “With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, on Thursday, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces ‘colorblindness for all’ by legal fiat.” ... “But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life.”

“If the colleges of this country are required to ignore a thing that matters, it will not just go away. It will take longer for racism to leave us. And, ultimately, ignoring race just makes it matter more.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a developing story. check back later for updates and additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective. Follow @DioknoEd on Twitter or at his blog Views From the Edge.