Advocates for refugees say the Supreme Court’s narrow decision to uphold birthright citizenship is a win, but they argue it does not change the legal barriers children born to immigrants in Wisconsin face when trying to access equal rights.

Zain Lakhani, director of migrant rights and justice at the Women’s Refugee Commission, said citizenship is supposed to be universal, but it is not applied that way in the United States. She cited regulations limiting access to public housing and other benefits for mixed-status families.

She also pointed to the federal Child Tax Credit, with Republicans last year pushing through changes that blocked eligibility for those households.

“So, this is a way in which you do not get those vital life-sustaining benefits to which you are entitled to as a U.S. citizen because one of your parents is an immigrant,” Lakhani said.

In restricting access to the Child Tax Credit, Republican lawmakers argued it was needed to stop incentivizing illegal immigration.

There are about 6 million people born in the United States who live in a mixed-status household, according to the American Immigration Council. Lakhani said they are not experiencing equal citizenship rights in the same way as their peers who have U.S. citizen parents.

Lakhani said current immigration enforcement practices also hinder access to citizenship rights. She said parents are being deported without opportunities to arrange legal caretakers for their children, despite U.S. policy requiring it.

That leaves U.S. citizen children in the care of people who are not able to line up essential services, enroll the children in school, obtain healthcare or secure passports for family reunification, she said.

“So these children, they have legal rights as citizens to all of these benefits, but they are not able to access them because their parent was deported without being able to assign them a legal guardian,” Lakhani said.

In Wisconsin, where an estimated 28,000 families are mixed-status, leaders remain split on this week’s Supreme Court rulings.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul said the fact that the high court is debating birthright citizenship and that several justices dissented is concerning. Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., believes the court’s ruling risks further incentivizing abuse of the immigration system.

Source: Public News Service