Here’s the story:
Unlike most industrialized countries in the world, the United States automatically grants citizenship to those born in the country, regardless of their parents’ immigrant status. Their birth certificate is automatically proof of citizenship.
For decades along the Texas-Mexico border, midwives delivered babies to the many people who could not afford a doctor. The midwives filled out birth certificates, and the babies became US citizens. In the early 1990s, however, there were reports of some midwives accepting bribes to issue fraudulent birth certificates to babies who had actually been born in Mexico. Some fifteen of the midwives practicing in southern Texas were investigated and ten were convicted; officials at the time made attempts to identify which birth certificates were legitimate and which weren’t. Since even the convicted midwives had also delivered many babies in the US and the hundreds of other midwives had issued countless legitimate birth certificates, it was virtually impossible, even then, to determine which were legitimate and which were not. Some of the babies were nevertheless deported.
In order to resolve the issue, the ACLU sued the government in 2009 and came to an agreement with the State Department: “Citizens will no longer be denied a passport solely because of their race, ancestry or because they happened to be born at home with a midwife." After that 2009 decision, the George W. Bush administration quickly began winding the policy down, and the Obama Administration ended it completely. (It is not true—as has been argued by the State Department and reported in recent news accounts—that Obama continued the policy of deportations; rather, he and Bush inherited the problem from fifteen years previously and stopped it almost immediately after the 2009 agreement.)
In the past months, however, the Trump administration re-initiated the process of confiscating Latinx passports and issuing deportation orders. As a result, some citizens with official US birth certificates or passports are being held in immigration detention centers and are subject to deportation proceedings.
The government has not yet issued any criteria for identifying people who were actually born in the US nor has it given reasons to suspect that any these individuals were in fact born in Mexico. So far, the only criterion seems to be that the person is Latinx and delivered by a midwife along the border. The government has insisted on further proof, such as hospital records, evidence of their mother’s prenatal care, baptismal certificates, family Bibles, school records, rental agreements and so on. Lacking that, confiscated passports and, in some cases, initiated deportation proceedings. Some of these citizens are 40 years old or more. Some have served in the military. There is no rationale offered. The bottom line is that some US citizens who have legitimate passports must prove that they are citizens, by criteria few of the rest of us could fulfill either. Even for those who are not detained, important civil rights are no longer protected:
- voting,
- foreign travel (even to visit relatives in their home country),
- public assistance benefits,
- freedom from arrest as undocumented immigrants,
- even the right to return to the US after a trip away,
- and others.
The impact of this new policy will be felt in several areas:
- Although the Supreme Court will undoubtedly rule the practice unconstitutional, the real impact on other immigrants—both documented and undocumented as well as on naturalized citizens—will be profound. Even after the Supreme Court determines the policy unconstitutional, the damage will have been done and the fear will persist. The reluctance to have contact with government agencies will sharpen. The food-stamp program, other important benefit programs for naturalized and other citizens—voluntary contact with law enforcement, and perhaps even emergency room visits and school education for children—will almost certainly be affected, making life in the immigrant community even more painful than it already is.
- In the long run, and even more important to our democracy, this unconstitutional attack will undoubtedly be popular among Trump’s supporters. The commitment to our Constitution and to the balance of powers within our government will be weakened. Even among Trump’s critics, the notion that he can so easily subvert the democratic process will weaken our commitment to peaceful change and the constitutional process.
- When the basic constitutional right of due process has been trampled on, we can only imagine what will be next as the administration tries to stifle dissent,
The power of this one man’s ability to damage our democracy becomes more and more frightening.
