Elected officials in New York and nationwide joined an amicus brief filed by the Public Rights Project fighting President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship. The order is being challenged on several fronts; a federal judge is blocking it.
Since birthright citizenship is a 14th Amendment right, legal experts feel there’s no basis for upholding the order.
Michael Chameides, a Third Ward representative on the Columbia County Board of Supervisors, said people born in the county not being considered residents would have grave impacts.
“If you take that conclusion down the line, you could imagine someone who’s born here, who then has kids here, who then has grandkids here; you could have generations of people living in the community living as non-citizens,” he said. “So, it’s even worse than being a second-class citizen. They would be forced to live in the shadows.”
Enacting this executive order could divert local and state resources from their intended purpose. Given its broad implications, it could add more red tape for the government, create barriers to health care for families, reduce some young people’s ability to get jobs due to discrimination, and harm the long-term economy.
Columbia County residents’ feedback to Trump’s recent executive orders has been mostly negative given their impacts. Chameides noted it’s exacerbating people’s fear and uncertainty about the world, and added that residents have other concerns beyond Trump’s “culture war” agenda.
“I think what people are seeing is, they are concerned about the rise in costs and those kinds of things,” he said, “and that this sort of attack on birthright citizenship is such a distraction from the real things at hand — which is, how do we make sure working families have the tools and opportunities they need to take care of themselves?”
Some people want the federal government to develop more affordable housing, address health care affordability challenges, and help develop a fiscally sustainable emergency response service.
Chameides said the State of New York is working to fill the gap left by Trump’s policies.
“I think New York also needs to step up and make sure it’s supporting rural hospitals, that we’re making sure health care access is important,” he said. “We’ve had some improvements around support for EMS systems, which is so critically important, but we need to continue to lean in.”
Edwin is a reporter and producer in North Tonawanda, New York. He’s previously reported for the Niagara Gazette and the Ithaca Times. Edwin got an early start in radio interning for WBFO-88.7FM, NPR’s Buffalo affiliate. In 2018, he graduated from SUNY Buffalo State College with a B.A. in Journalism, and in 2022, graduated from Syracuse University with an M.S. in Communications.