A lawsuit filed against President Donald Trump by five pregnant women and several immigrant groups warns that Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship could render babies born to some asylum-seekers “stateless.”
The executive order Trump signed Monday, titled Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship, attempts to limit birthright citizenship to people who have at least one parent who is a United States citizen or permanent resident. It also states that those born to parents who are in the country legally, but temporarily, will no longer be automatically guaranteed citizenship.
A federal district court in Seattle on Thursday temporarily blocked the order limiting birthright citizenship, preventing it from going into effect for 14 days. The case is ongoing.
The situation could be particularly complicated for asylum-seekers from Venezuela, which no longer has an embassy or consulates in the U.S.
If birthright citizenship is revoked and a child were born in the U.S. to Venezuelan asylum-seekers, the parents would have trouble registering their child as a Venezuelan citizen due to the lack of diplomatic offices here, thus making the child “stateless,” at least temporarily, plaintiffs’ attorneys said.
Venezuela broke diplomatic ties with the U.S. in 2019. That year, Trump recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president of the country.
A child born to Venezuelan parents would not have a passport or any travel document to fly to Venezuela and go through their citizenship process.
Monica, one of the pregnant plaintiffs in the lawsuit, fears persecution if she returns to Venezuela.
She arrived in the U.S. with her husband in 2019 and has been waiting since then for her asylum case to come up in court.
“I’m 12 weeks pregnant. It’s hard,” she said.
“We will most likely have a crisis of thousands of stateless children born in the U.S., not only from Venezuela, but from any immigrant that gives birth and their country does not have an embassy in the U.S.,” said Juan De la Vega, an immigration attorney in Miami.
He said these children would either have to apply for asylum themselves or be added to their parents’ claim, unless some type of special status is created for these children.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro recently said he would welcome back immigrants deported from the United States. But many Venezuelans, like Monica, left the country fleeing from his political regime and the deteriorated living conditions in the country.
The lawsuit against Trump, which was filed Tuesday by Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, CASA, Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law, also includes pregnant women from Honduras and Russia, countries with a diplomatic presence in the U.S.
But even for them this could still be a problem, because requesting a passport for a U.S. born-child could endanger the parents’ asylum claims, said Leidy Pérez, policy and communications director at the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project.
“Asking for a passport for yourself, and presumably for these children, could be considered under the U.S. asylum laws as you availing yourself of the country that you’re seeking protection from,” Pérez said.
Some immigration attorneys said the executive order is unclear and asylum-seekers may still have an avenue to birthright citizenship for their children.
“There might be a loophole for those seeking asylum,” said Helena Tetzeli, an attorney with the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “The executive order states the parents’ legal status cannot be ‘unlawful or temporary.’ If you’re applying for asylum, you are here lawfully and your process is not temporary; you intend to stay here permanently.”
Democratic attorneys general from 23 states have sued to block Trump’s executive order. Many legal experts believe the order will ultimately be rejected by the Supreme Court, despite it having a 6-3 conservative majority.
