- Thursday, January 23, 2025
As per the executive order, the US would not give automatic citizenship to newborn babies after February 19, if one of the parents is not a US citizen or lawful permanent resident
By: India Weekly
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship has jolted the Indian immigrants.
As the February 20 deadline approaches, many doctors at maternity clinics are being requested by Indian couples for C-sections before that date, reports Times of India.
A doctor based out of New Jersey said she has received a number of such requests and in some cases the expectant mothers were a couple of months away from the full term.
The daily contacted some Indian-American doctors in various parts of the US and most of them claimed that Indian couples are desperate to beat the birthright citizenship deadline.
Doctors have been warning couples about the health risks involved for both the mother and the child during pre-term births.
The complications include underdeveloped lungs, feeding problems, low birth weight and neurological complications.
As per the executive order, the US would not give automatic citizenship to newborn babies after February 19, 2025, if one of the parents is not a US citizen or lawful permanent resident.
It asserts that the children of such noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, and thus are not covered by the 14th Amendment’s longstanding constitutional guarantee.
The move will hit not only illegal immigrants from around the world but also students and professionals from India.
Highly skilled professionals from India walk away with the overwhelming number of H-1B visas – which is Congressional mandated 65,0000 every year and another 20,000 for those who received higher education from the US.
Many of them are in queue for green cards, that will provide them permanent residency in the US.
However, with the backlog of green cards stretching to over a century, many couples were seeing birthright citizenship as a safety net. But the new order has put them in a spot.
On the other hand, the passage of this order is not going to be smooth for the Trump administation.
Attorneys general from 22 states sued President Trump in two federal district courts on Tuesday (21) to block the executive order that refuses to recognise the US-born children of unauthorised immigrants as citizens, the New York Times reported.
Eighteen states and two cities, San Francisco and Washington, DC, challenged the order in the Federal District Court in Massachusetts, arguing that birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment is “automatic” and that neither the president nor Congress has the constitutional authority to revise it.
Four other states filed a second lawsuit in the Western District of Washington.
