CA sues Trump administration over ‘birthright’ order

From CalMatters criminal justice reporter Nigel Duara:

Resistance state Round 2 officially began Tuesday when California filed its first lawsuit against the new Donald Trump administration.

Eighteen states, including California, filed a lawsuit in federal court, challenging an executive order by Trump that would revoke the right of guaranteed citizenship to anyone born in the country. 

• California Attorney General Rob Bonta, at a Tuesday press conference: “I am deeply disappointed that we’re here, and also not at all surprised. This isn’t some theoretical legal disagreement. It would strip Americans of their most basic rights.” 

Bonta and the other attorneys general are asking the court for an immediate injunction to stop the order from taking effect on Feb. 19 while they litigate the case in United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 

The attorneys general sued on grounds that the order violates the Fourteenth Amendment and the Immigration and Nationality Act by denying birthright citizenship to children born in the U.S.

“Under the order, such children born after February 19, 2025 — who would have been unquestionably deemed citizens had they been born two days ago — will lack any legal status in the eyes of the federal government,” the lawsuit asserts. “They will all be deportable, and many will be stateless. They will lose the ability to access myriad federal services that are available to their fellow Americans.”

The order would also affect how, and whether, states can provide health care to low-income children who would be denied citizenship, the lawsuit alleges. In California, that’s Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program and the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program.

The executive order asserts that undocumented people are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S., and therefore not protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. 

Daniel Farber, faculty director of UC Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment, said the Trump administration’s argument likely faces long odds in court. 

• Farber: “I think there’s virtually no support among experts for the view that people who are born in the U.S. and whose parents aren’t lawfully in the country are somehow not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.”

Lawsuit tracker: With Trump’s term underway, CalMatters is tracking the lawsuits California is filing against the administration. Check it out here.

Besides the litany of executive orders, Trump also directed his administration Monday to route more water sourced from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to people in “other parts of the state … who desperately need a reliable water supply.” 

But his memo is causing confusion among some environmental experts, writes CalMatters’ Alastair Bland.

The memo calls for reinstating rules drafted during Trump’s first term in 2019, which would override an alternate proposal — unveiled in December but years in the making — developed by the Biden and Gov. Gavin Newsom administrations. 

In comparison to this plan, Trump wrote his rules “would have allowed enormous amounts of water to flow” to the Central Valley and Southern California, and that currently, “enormous water supply flows wastefully into the Pacific Ocean.”

But there’s one hitch: The Biden and Newsom plan would actually send more water to Southern California than Trump’s, according to an environmental analysis of the plan.

• Jon Rosenfield, science director with the environmental watchdog group San Francisco Baykeeper: “It’s not worded with any precision and it embeds a lot of false premises. It shows an incredible lack of understanding of how California water works.”

Read more here.

Lawmakers serving on the budget committees for the ongoing special session plan to consider today two bills that, together, would set aside as much as $2.5 billion in state funding for wildfire response and preparedness.

The proposals, which the Legislature could pass as early as Thursday, would provide $1 billion for cleanup and recovery for communities affected by the wildfires currently burning in Los Angeles County. The other $1.5 billion would come from the climate bond voters approved in November to prepare California for other natural disasters.

Of the $1 billion in recovery money, $1 million would specifically go towards rebuilding affected schools. As CalMatters’ Carolyn Jones explains, at least a dozen schools have been damaged, including at least five that were completely ruined.

Money from a recently-passed bond measure for repairing school facilities is also expected to help. The state is likely to prioritize schools devastated by the fires — meaning some schools still in dire need of critical repairs could miss out.

Read more here.

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