Five expectant mothers and a number of immigration organizations have filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump, claiming that Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship may make some asylum-seekers’ unborn children “stateless.”
Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship, the executive order that Trump signed on Monday, aims to restrict birthright citizenship to those who have at least one parent who is a citizen or permanent resident of the United States. Additionally, it declares that children born to parents who are temporarily but lawfully in the nation would no longer be automatically granted citizenship.
The birthright citizenship restriction order was temporarily stopped by a federal district court in Seattle on Thursday, delaying its implementation for 14 days. The matter is still pending.
For asylum-seekers from Venezuela, which no longer has an embassy or consulate in the United States, the issue may be especially complex.
According to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, if birthright citizenship is revoked and a child is born in the United States to Venezuelan asylum-seekers, the parents will find it difficult to register the child as a Venezuelan citizen because there aren’t any diplomatic offices here, leaving the child stateless, at least temporarily.
In 2019, Venezuela severed diplomatic relations with the United States. Trump acknowledged opposition leader Juan Guaid as the nation’s acting president that year.
In order to travel to Venezuela and complete the citizenship process, a kid born to Venezuelan parents would not have a passport or any other travel documents.
One of the lawsuit’s pregnant plaintiffs, Monica, worries about being persecuted if she goes back to Venezuela.
She has been waiting for her asylum case to be heard in court since she and her spouse landed in the United States in 2019.
My pregnancy is 12 weeks along. “It’s difficult,” she remarked.
Juan De la Vega, an immigration lawyer in Miami, predicted that there would likely be a crisis of thousands of stateless infants born in the United States, not just from Venezuela but from any immigrant who gives birth and whose nation does not have an embassy in the country.
According to him, unless a special status is established for these kids, they will either need to petition for asylum on their own or be joined to their parents’ claim.
The president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, recently declared that he would accept the return of U.S.-deported immigrants. However, a lot of Venezuelans, including Monica, fled the nation because of his political dictatorship and the worsening living conditions there.
In addition to pregnant women from Russia and Honduras, two nations with diplomatic missions in the United States, the complaint against Trump was filed Tuesday by Georgetown Law’s Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, CASA, Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.
However, even for them, this might still be an issue since, according to Leidy P. Rez, director of policy and communications at the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, asking for a passport for a child born in the United States could jeopardize the parents’ asylum claims.
According to Prez, requesting a passport for both yourself and these children may be regarded as granting entry into the country from which you are seeking shelter under U.S. asylum rules.
According to some immigration lawyers, asylum seekers may still be able to get birthright citizenship for their children because the executive order is ambiguous.
According to Helena Tetzeli, a lawyer with the American Immigration Lawyers Association, there may be a way out for people who are applying for asylum. According to the executive order, the parents’ legal status cannot be temporary or illegal. You are here legally, your application for asylum is not temporary, and you plan to remain here permanently.
Twenty-three states’ Democratic attorneys general have filed a lawsuit to halt Trump’s executive order. Despite the order’s conservative 6-3 majority, many legal experts predict that the Supreme Court would ultimately reject it.