https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-26-2025
"Early yesterday morning, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent three
U.S. citizens aged 2, 4, and 7 from Louisiana, including one with Stage 4
cancer, to Honduras when they deported their mothers. The three are children of
two different mothers who were arrested while checking in with the government
as part of their routine process for immigration proceedings. The women and
their children were not permitted to speak to family or lawyers before being
flown to Honduras. The cancer patient was sent out of the country without
medication or consultation with doctors although, according to Charisma
Madarang and Lorena O'Neil of
Rolling Stone, ICE agents were told of the
child’s medical needs.
The government says the mothers opted to take their U.S. citizen children to
Honduras with them. But as Emmanuel Felton and Maegan Vazquez of the
Washington Post noted, because ICE refused to let the women talk to their
lawyers, there is only the agents’ word for how events transpired.
ICE also deported Heidy Sánchez, a Cuban-born mother of a one-year-old who is
still breastfeeding, leaving the child in the U.S. with her father, who is a
U.S. citizen. Like the women flown to Honduras, Sánchez was detained when she
showed up at a scheduled check-in with ICE.
In March, ICE agents sent four U.S. citizens, including a 10-year-old with
brain cancer, to Mexico when they deported their undocumented parents.
In May 2023, then–presidential candidate Donald J. Trump released a video
promising that on “Day One” of a new presidential term, he would issue an
executive order that would end birthright citizenship. He claimed that the
understanding that anyone born in the United States is automatically a citizen
is “based on a historical myth, and a willful misinterpretation of the law by
the open borders advocates.” He promises to make “clear to federal agencies
that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward, the future
children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic US citizenship.”
Reelected in 2024, on his first day in office, Trump signed an Executive Order
titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” It announced
a new U.S. policy, saying that the government would not issue documents
recognizing U.S. citizenship to persons whose “mother was unlawfully present in
the United States and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or
lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or…when that
person’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and
the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent
resident at the time of said person’s birth.”
The order specified that it would not take effect for 30 days. If it had been
in effect when Trump’s rival for the White House, Vice President Kamala Harris,
was born, she would have fallen under it.
But an executive order is simply a directive to federal employees. It cannot
override the Constitution. Trump’s attack on the idea of birthright citizenship
as a “historical myth” is a perversion of our history."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
