Newsday
Long Island immigration advocates said they're concerned about a flurry of executive orders President Donald Trump was signing Monday evening, including one that seeks to end birthright citizenship — a tenet enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
They said the orders will send desperate families into hiding or force others who have made a law-abiding life for themselves in the U.S. to return to home countries wracked by poverty or violence.
Hours after taking the Oath of Office as the nation's 47th president, Trump was in the White House signing 10 executive orders remaking the country's immigration policy, following up on a central theme in his campaign. He often referred to those in the country illegally as criminals or mentally ill people, who were taking away social benefits and jobs from U.S. citizens. More than 210,000 migrants arrived in New York City since the spring of 2022.
Trump signed an order declaring a national emergency at the U.S. southern border, allowing the Defense Department to deploy the military and the National Guard. Another order he was due to sign suspends refugee resettlement for at least four months; reinstated "Remain in Mexico," a policy requiring asylum-seekers to stay in Mexico during their immigration proceedings and terminated the CBP One app used to request immigration appointments electronically.
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND
Only hours after taking office Monday, President Donald Trump was expected to sign 10 executive orders related to immigration policy, including pledging to end birthright citizenship for those born to immigrants who entered the country illegally.
Trump's orders would declare a national emergency at the U.S. southern border, suspended refugee resettlement, reinstated the "Remain in Mexico" program and rescinded a process known as "catch and release."
Long Island immigrant advocates said the measures would cause chaos across the region, forcing many families who entered the country illegally into hiding, but pledged to fight the orders in court
Trump signed an order repealing a humanitarian parole program allowing nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to stay in the U.S. for up to two years and ending a practice known as "catch and release," in which immigrants entering the country illegally are released after being processed at the border.
"All illegal entry will immediately be halted and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came," Trump said during his inaugural address.
Arguably the most controversial order he signed Monday, with potentially the largest impact, would seek to end "birthright citizenship" for those born to immigrants who entered the country illegally — a concept guaranteed by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The order is expected to face fierce legal challenges in federal court as to its constitutionality.
Some conservative scholars have argued that a phrase in the 14th amendment — that citizenship must be granted to those "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States — would exclude the born-in-America children of those who are not living in the country legally.
But that is not the consensus view of most constitutional scholars, and although the Supreme Court has not explicitly decided whether such children are entitled to birthright citizenship, similar cases have ruled those children are automatically citizens, said retired Cornell Law School professor Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, who co-authored the treatise "Immigration Law & Procedure."
"Of all of the expected immigration orders," he said of Trump’s birthright citizenship order, "that one is the most likely to be struck down by the courts."
Melanie Creps, executive director of CARECEN, a Hempstead and Brentwood organization that provides free legal services and education to new immigrants said: "Some of these orders also appear to directly violate U.S. law. However, as demonstrated during his previous term, organizations like ours are prepared to challenge and resist any racist and unlawful actions."
Minerva Perez, executive director of OLA of Eastern Long Island, a Latino-focused advocacy organization working in the five East End towns, said Trump's orders unfairly punish Hispanic families that represent the best of their communities.
"Our Latino children are valedictorians, leaders within school communities, entrepreneurs, and allies for other students," Perez said. "We are a safe and prosperous community because of the very work ethic passed on to first generation child citizens by their immigrant parents.
This practice has been the very backbone of our country. If this administration is allowed to rip the literal backbone from our country, the inevitable will be the full collapse of the body itself," she said.
But Barrett Psareas, vice president of the Nassau County Civic Association, said his organization supports Trump’s actions, including ending birthright citizenship.
"We’re behind it 110%," he said. "It’s a shame that we’ve gotten to this point," adding that a crackdown "should have been done years ago."
Yale-Loehr, who codirects a clinic at the university that helps people apply for asylum, said even if Trump is unsuccessful in court, the orders "will cause chaos and fear among immigrants. And that may be the main point if he hopes that people will self deport back to their home countries."
Trump's declaration of a national emergency on the southern border may also not be legal, suggested Patrick Young, a special professor of immigration law at Hofstra University Law School.
"Typically the government just can’t say, ‘well people are applying for asylum so therefore we’re going to declare that an emergency,’ because those are people who are actually following what the process is under the law," Young said.
For asylum-seekers already in the country, the immediate impact of the orders may be limited because they have hearings pending in immigration court, Yale-Loehr said.
"But if they have relatives overseas, those relatives may not be able to come to the United States, either through the refugee resettlement program or by trying to cross the border legally or illegally," he said.
Other Trump orders expected to be signed Monday included designating cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, fast-tracking construction of his border wall and seeking the death penalty for capital crimes committed by individuals in the country illegally.
Nadia Marin-Molina, co-executive director of the National Day Labor Organizing Network and former head of the Workplace Project in Hempstead, said Trump’s orders are aimed at stoking fear but will do little to solve immigration issues.
"We know that this administration is going to do everything that it can to continue to terrorize the immigrant community, to create fear, and to create division between immigrants and people who were born here," Marin-Molina said.
Separately, Trump' "border czar" Tom Homan has said large-scale raids of businesses employing immigrants in the country illegally are expected to begin this week in many large cities, including Chicago.
With Matthew Chayes
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