Santa Clara County filed two lawsuits against President Donald J. Trump and his administration for attempting to add new criteria for birthright citizenship and for attempting to target sanctuary cities by withholding federal funding.
Jurisdictions with “sanctuary” policies are states, counties or cities that limit their cooperation with federal law enforcement in immigration enforcement, according to a 2020 document from the Congressional Research Service.
Tony LoPresti, the county counsel and an executive for Santa Clara County, said he and the county government felt it was critical to stand up for the rights of its residents and to defend the United States Constitution.
“That right to birthright citizenship has been enshrined in the Constitution for well over 150 years,” LoPresti said. “It's been affirmed by the United States Supreme Court, and it is foundational to our country and the way that our country operates for us as a county.”
Birthright citizenship is protected by the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship to every child born on U.S. soil, according to an Oct. 2024 fact sheet from the American Immigration Council.
Santa Clara County’s two lawsuits
Santa Clara County filed a lawsuit on Jan. 30 against the president and his administration that aimed to take away birthright citizenship from hundreds of children in the future, according to the county’s complaint.
The county argues that Trump’s executive order goes against 157 years of precedent that was first established by the 14th Amendment, according to the same source.
On Jan. 20, Trump signed an executive order reinterpreting the 14th Amendment to exclude children born from parents who are not nationals or citizens of the United States, according to the executive order.
According to the administration’s reinterpretation, Congress has specified through past legislation that citizenship should not be automatically granted to an individual born in the U.S. based on the parents’ status as a citizen or as an immigrant.
Specifically, citizenship should not be granted if a person’s mother is unlawfully in the U.S. or if she only has temporary immigration status, and if the father is not a permanent resident in both scenarios, according to the same executive order.
LoPresti said it would impact Santa Clara County’s ability to provide social services to residents because of the fear the executive order could further create.
He said many residents in the community have various levels of immigration status, including asylum seekers who depend on work visas.
“Taking away birthright citizenship would impact their sense of security, (and) their willingness to be in our country, (to contribute) to our economy, (to contribute) to our private industry (and to contribute) to our government's functions,” LoPresti said.
On the same day, Trump signed another executive order to take away or pause federal funding for organizations that support “removable or illegal aliens,” according to the executive order.
This executive order gives the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security the power to take lawful action against “sanctuary” jurisdictions to ensure they can not access federal funds, according to the same executive order.
Santa Clara County filed a second lawsuit on Feb. 7 against the administration for attempting to illegally harm communities that have “sanctuary” policies, according to a press release from the county.
LoPresti said the federal government is not allowed to force local governments to help federal law officers enforce civil immigration laws.
“(The federal government) can’t commandeer our local law enforcement officers to try to turn them into agents of mass deportation and that Constitutional right is very clear,” LoPresti said.
According to the county, “sanctuary” policies include rules that prohibit resources from the local government to be used to carry out civil immigration enforcement, according to the same press release.
Santa Clara County filed the lawsuit along with San Francisco and other local jurisdictions across the nation, according to the same source.
Thoughts from community members
On Sunday, Silicon Valley Immigration Committee and other advocacy groups, hosted a protest outside of the Mexican Heritage Plaza.
Diana Valencia, a protester and a resident of San José, said she is very proud that the county is pursuing both lawsuits.
“At every level we need to fight this,” she said. “At every stage, we have to give him such a fight . . . to show that it’s not going to be an easy right to just take away.”
At the protest on Sunday, Valencia and the other protesters marched from Alum Rock Avenue to Story Road to the shopping plazas in the La Placita Tropicana area to march past the local Target store.
On Jan. 26, volunteers from the county’s Rapid Response Network announced San José’s first recent sighting of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, according to previous reporting from the Spartan Daily on Jan. 28.
Councilmember Peter Ortiz, a representative for District 5 in San José, said he and other volunteers saw employees from Target cooperate with ICE officers on sight, according to the same report from the Spartan Daily.
The ICE officers arrested a female Colombian national on site, according to the same source.
The Rapid Response Network is a community defense project designed to protect immigrant families from deportation threats on a 24/7 basis, according to a webpage from Sacred Heart.
Valencia said she was born in Mexico but moved to San José when she was young. She has lived in the city for around 30 years. She now has a six-year-old daughter.
“I was four and a half, and so I received my immigration status through my stepdad,” she said. “If I wasn’t documented and she was born here, she would not be documented. (I’m) just putting myself in the shoes of so many families.”
According to a report from American Immigration Council, immigrants make up 40% of Santa Clara County’s population, and contribute $5.1 billion to Social Security and $1.8 billion to Medicare in 2021, according to the county’s webpage.
The American Immigration Council is a group that examines and analyzes how immigrants contribute to a region’s labor force, business sector and consumer spending power, according to the same source.
Max Hsiu, a counter-protester at a post-inauguration protest that happened at Winchester Boulevard on Jan. 20, said he thinks Trump supports immigrants coming into the country as long as they come in legally.
Hsiu, a Taiwanese American who voted for Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024, said he does not believe that the president’s goals for immigration are racist.
“(Trump) absolutely supports people from Mexico to come here legally, but they have to do it the right way,” Hsiu said. “It's not about race . . . Just come here legally. If not, you may get deported.”
The immigration system
Huy Tran, an executive director for SIREN and a partner for the Justice at Work Law Group, said Trump’s executive orders on birthright citizenship are related to race because of the 14th Amendment’s history with slavery.
The 14th Amendment freed former slaves and granted citizenship to all individuals born on U.S. soil when it was ratified in 1868, according to a webpage from the Library of Congress.
Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network is a nonprofit that is a community of immigrant rights activists and advocates, according to its webpage.
The nonprofit supports low-income immigrants through education, civic engagement, legal services and more, according to the same source.
Justice at Work is a law firm that provides legal services for workers in low-wage jobs, according to its webpage.
“Whenever somebody says, ‘Look, just get in line. Do things the right way,’ right off the bat, that tells me they have zero understanding of our immigration system,” Tran said.
There are 30 immigrant visa categories that individuals can apply for in the U.S., according to a webpage from the U.S. Dept. of State - Bureau of Consular Affairs.
Visas and green cards are both government-issued documents for immigrants, but only a green card will allow an individual to work and stay in the U.S. permanently, according to a webpage from U.S. Immigration.
To earn a green card, immigrants must look through the eligibility categories to see if they are eligible for the program, according to a different webpage from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Immigrants must also apply for advance parole if they would like to travel outside of the U.S. and go through a medical exam to earn their green card, according to the same source.
Tran said it is very difficult to simplify the immigration system because there are numerous paths and obstacles to receiving U.S. citizenship.
“It’s not necessarily one line,” Tran said. “There's a golden ticket that everybody wants to get to, but there's a whole lot of different ways to try to get into that pipeline that gets you there, and every little pipeline, every pathway you take, it's all temporary until you can find a way to check off all those eligibility boxes.”
Tran said it can take years to go through the immigration process depending on what type of visa a person applies for or what path a person takes to earn their citizenship.
The medical examination to earn a green card also varies between costs $200-$500 and the cost for various forms to apply for it can cost between $85-$675, according to a webpage from Immigration Direct.
Tran said Trump’s executive order to change the criteria for birthright citizenship can take away rights for many children in the future.
“That means the rights that you (an individual born in the U.S.) would have as a person who may have spent years in the community, working, going to school, contributing and being a part of the community, it just (wouldn’t) count,” Tran said.
