Being born in the United States means you are a U.S. citizen. This has been cemented in U.S. history, written into the Constitution in the 14th Amendment and upheld over the years since.
This right is integral to the fabric of our nation. However, for the first time in over 150 years, there has been a very real challenge to the legitimacy of this fact.
In January, President Trump signed an executive order claiming that children born in the United States without at least one citizen or lawful permanent resident parent are not U.S. citizens.
Federal courts have blocked the order nationwide, but in June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that district courts overstepped their authority by issuing nationwide injunctions, and sent the birthright citizenship issue itself back to lower courts for now.
Most recently, a federal court issued the first decision in the case since the Supreme Court ruling, authorizing a class action lawsuit, which the Supreme Court had said was a way of challenging the executive order. The judge’s decision applies nationwide.
Despite the historical precedent around this matter, the administration has stood firm. If this executive order is upheld, not only would this be unconstitutional and unfair, but detrimental to the success of our state, nation and those the 14th Amendment rightly grants citizenship.
Immigrants are critical to the wellbeing of our communities. This is especially true here in El Paso, where over 200,000 immigrants live, work and contribute every day.
We rely on immigrants’ contributions to have a strong and stable workforce and economy.
In El Paso, immigrants make up 53% of our agriculture workforce, 38%of our construction workforce and 42%of our manufacturing workforce. To put it simply, we could not thrive without their support.
We should be making it easier for immigrants to contribute, not stripping legal pathways and adding hoops to jump through to have adequate work authorization and legal status to be able to remain living and working here.
The last thing we need is to find a new way to make this more challenging for them, and ending birthright citizenship would be a nightmare for so many in the immigrant community and all those that rely on them.
These threats to birthright citizenship create unnecessary confusion and fear for families as well as for employers and workforce systems, and it is not in any of our best interests to let this go on any longer.
Should the executive order move forward, millions of babies could lose their citizenship. As a result of that, children could face undue discrimination and could be treated differently simply based on their citizenship status – something that their parents cannot control. We would be jeopardizing the future success of so many children who did nothing wrong and did nothing to deserve this.
At the same time, birth rates in El Paso have been on a decline, with the number of children dropping by 12,000 over the past four years. The last thing our region needs is for less babies to be considered U.S. citizens and to be able to grow up to contribute to our success as Americans.
Birthright citizenship is a core part of American identity and equality. At least 1.8 million U.S.-born children have undocumented or temporary status parents. These children are American in every sense of the word, and they thrive in their communities as a result.
Ending birthright citizenship would worsen immigration chaos and exclude millions from the bright futures that they had envisioned for themselves. And as a result, our workforce and economy would suffer immensely.
The courts must uphold the Constitution and the 14th Amendment. Any attempt to eliminate birthright citizenship is in direct opposition to the Constitution and will squash the benefits of birthright citizenship for our communities, families, and economy.
Ricardo Mora is president of the El Paso Chamber.
The post Opinion: Birthright citizenship, anchored in the Constitution, is vital for El Paso appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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