DENVER — Colorado communities are reacting to President Donald Trump’s executive order regarding birthright citizenship.
The issue headed to a federal courtroom Thursday morning with several states, including Colorado, challenging the order and successfully temporarily stopping it from going into effect next month.
The first part of the executive order, which is titled, "PROTECTING THE MEANING AND VALUE OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP," reads that citizenship doesn’t extend to children:
“When that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.”
The second part that is also starting to get attention and is the cause for growing concerns among many Coloradans reads that birthright citizenship shouldn't be granted to someone:
"When that person’s mother’s presence in the United States at the time of said person’s birth was lawful but temporary (such as, but not limited to, visiting the United States under the auspices of the Visa Waiver Program or visiting on a student, work, or tourist visa) and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.”
Several communities in Colorado, including the South Asian community, are rattled by the actions taken by President Trump. In a lot of cases, South Asians come to the United States, including to Colorado, to study and to work.
“Many of the South Asian, or from the Indian subcontinent, they are coming with the technical visas, the H-1A’s and B’s and all of those,” said Dilpreet Jammu, a co-founder of the Colorado Sikhs.
Jammu said some of those visa holders are people who have been living here for decades, while others are living with that temporary legal status and working towards a permanent residency.
Community leaders told Denver7 this week they are trying to figure out how this executive order could be used and what that means for future generations.
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“As a community — all communities — are going to have to sit down and figure out what they want to do with this,” said Jammu. “I think there is concern about the implications of repealing or finding a way around the 14th Amendment, because these are our kids."
Jammu said there are cases where people wait years for a green card and now families are grappling with what to do and wonder whether their children will feel like they belong if they're brought up in this country but don't end up becoming citizens.
He said another concern that worries the South Asian community is the economic impact of potentially losing some of the country's next generation of workers to fill critical jobs.
Jammu said part of the anxiety also being felt by the community is that people are looking for clarity about their specific situations and immigration status.
When we asked about how this could play out, a Colorado Attorney general's spokesperson told Denver7, “We don’t have answers for these hypothetical situations. The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is clear: If you are born in the U.S., you are a citizen."
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