WASHINGTON – A day after President Trump issued 11 executive orders cracking down on illegal immigration, advocates and a coalition of states led by California launch a legal battle against an administration that appears to have learned from past legal mistakes during Trump’s first term. Preparations are underway.
Among the many sweeping changes in President Trump’s order are declaring a national emergency at the southern border, stripping people of their birthright citizenship and designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
Immigrants and people who wanted to move to the United States are upset by the news. Thousands of migrants are stuck in Mexico indefinitely after President Trump ended the use of a phone app and canceled long-standing reservations for asylum seekers to enter the country legally. Afghan refugees who were allowed to travel to the United States now have nowhere to go after President Trump suspended refugee resettlement. Illegal immigrants in Chicago and other cities across the country remained in their homes fearing planned immigration raids.
Legal experts said the subtle amendments to some orders reflected the Trump administration’s attempt to preemptively defeat legal challenges.
“Some of the things they’ve done are preemptively trying to avoid a lot of the problems they encountered last time,” said Amy Fisher, director of Amnesty International USA’s Refugee and Immigrant Rights Program. speak
Opponents of President Trump’s order wasted no time in pushing back. California, a coalition of 17 other states, the District of Columbia and the city of San Francisco sued the federal government on Tuesday over President Trump’s attempt to abolish birthright citizenship, calling it unconstitutional and taking effect. asked the court to block it.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Monday night over the Birthright Citizenship Order, filing a legal complaint in an ongoing lawsuit over the rescheduling of asylum seekers at the border. Naina Gupta, policy director for the left-leaning American Immigration Council, said her group plans to file a lawsuit this week against President Trump’s use of executive authority to “suspend” certain immigrants if it would harm the national interest. He said that there is.
According to Trump’s order, asylum applications at the U.S.-Mexico border will be suspended “until I issue a finding that the invasion at our southern border has ceased.”
“President Trump’s series of executive orders are calculated to create fear, sow chaos, sow anxiety, and compel elected officials to surrender and cooperate with his mass deportation plan.” said Noreen Shah, ACLU’s deputy director of government affairs. “If we allow President Trump to exercise this kind of deadly power over our communities for immigration enforcement now, I fear he will come back again and again for our civil rights. I’m worried that it won’t happen.”
Long-time critics of illegal immigration praised the president’s actions. “Thanks to Donald Trump, America’s borders are becoming much more secure,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall) in a post on X. Issa’s district is along the border east of San Diego.
“Nothing embodies this new day in America like President Trump’s unwavering commitment to restoring border security and enforcement of our nation’s laws,” Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement. There’s nothing,” he said. ”
Some of Trump’s orders are premised on what opponents were quick to point out as legally dubious claims. For example, birthright citizenship is enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment.
“He can’t unilaterally change that,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said on CNN Monday night. “But it’s the conversation, the chaos, that he wants to create.”
And President Trump is preparing to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 against drug cartels by designating them as terrorist organizations. But to use this law, courts would have to agree that a criminal group could be considered a country at war with the United States. The Alien Enemy Act of 1798 allows the president to arrest, imprison, and deport immigrants from countries considered enemies of the United States during wartime.
“Whether this is a war or an invasion will be a subject of litigation, but the president has good legislation on this,” said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
However, objecting to some of President Trump’s policies will itself be difficult. Amnesty International’s Fischer said it’s difficult to clearly differentiate policies set out in executive orders when they overlap and are interdependent.
There is less definitive legal precedent for other aspects of the order. Fisher pointed to Trump’s suspension of refugee admissions during his first term as president. The executive order requires immigration authorities to send a report to the president within 90 days detailing whether it is “in the interest of the United States” to resume refugee processing.
Tom Jawetz, who was a senior attorney at the Department of Homeland Security under the Biden administration, said the new Trump administration is being more cautious and more aggressive than the last. His previous policies, such as Remain in Mexico, could be implemented more quickly and perhaps more effectively. Under this policy, asylum seekers must remain across the border while their cases are pending.
But some of the executive orders’ more “outlandish” provisions have little legal scrutiny, Jawec said. In his inaugural address, President Trump said he would send troops to border areas to fight illegal immigration.
“The combination of aligning the U.S. military’s mission with border security and declaring a national emergency with extreme rhetoric of invasion has the potential to be completely unprecedented and transformative,” Jawec said.
President Trump’s opponents are waiting for policy documents to emerge from the executive order. Jawec said litigation strategy ultimately depends on how the order is implemented.
Some of these policies began to trickle out Tuesday. In a news release, the Department of Homeland Security said Acting Secretary Benjamin Huffman would continue to expand the use of temporary humanitarian programs expanded under then-President Biden to provide legal protection to 1.5 million immigrants. announced that it had ordered it to be suspended. Another directive would rescind long-standing guidelines that prevent immigration enforcement from sensitive locations such as hospitals and churches.
“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to evade arrest. The Trump administration will not tie the hands of our nation’s brave law enforcement, instead trusting them to use common sense. ” said the release.
Times staff writer Rachel Uranga in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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