By Brian Wright O’Connor
La Hora del Café’s audience received a front-line report on the fight over President Trump’s sweeping new immigration orders during a Wednesday morning segment of El Mundo Boston’s award-winning streaming news and talk show.
Gladys Vega, president and chief executive officer of La Colaborativa, provided an on-air outline of the lawsuit filed alongside other social and civil rights groups against the administration’s policy of annulling birthright citizenship, which is enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“This is a violation of the Constitution,” said Vega, who joined the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and the Brazilian Workers Center on Tuesday in filing the legal action at midnight on Trump’s first day in the White House.
Vega said Trump’s executive orders, one of many impacting immigration policy, have raised fears of raids and family separations in households and communities of undocumented immigrants. While fighting the birthright order in court, Vega said her priorities also include efforts “to calm people’s fears,” citing past panics over mass deportation threats.
“You remember when there were calls about a raid at such-and-such a place, but then nothing would happen?” asked Vega. “We’re trying to keep misinformation at a minimum.”
The challenge to Trump’s executive order coincided with attorneys general in 18 states, led by Andrea Campbell in Massachusetts, filing their own lawsuit seeking to halt the order while it faces numerous legal battles. The newly inaugurated 47th president signed other orders within hours of his inauguration Monday, declaring a federal emergency at the southern border, closing border crossings, and authorizing federal troops to guard the frontier. Trump has long promised to begin mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, with the first wave focusing on violent felons.
Birthright citizenship was added to the Constitution in 1868 as a way of ensuring full rights for formerly enslaved African Americans in the wake of the Civil War. The Massachusetts attorney general said Trump’s order would affect more than 150,000 children born in the United States each year to immigrant parents, preventing them from lawfully working or voting when they grow up.
“We are very nervous and devastated about all these executive orders,” said Vega at the La Colaborativa press conference, held at the social services group’s Chelsea headquarters. “This is a violation, and we continue to be under attack. Let me remind you that without immigration, this country does not function.”
El Mundo Boston has scheduled a series of guests over the next week to discuss the evolving fight over immigration.
