CHICAGO (WLS) — Another protest against ICE got underway in downtown Chicago on Friday afternoon.
Immigration rights groups demanded that federal charges against Alejandro Orellana be dropped.
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Orellana was arrested earlier this month in Los Angeles after a protest against ICE raids.
Friday’s protest happened at Federal Plaza.
On Friday, Supreme Court justices decided that federal district courts do not have the authority to issue universal injunctions on President Donald Trump’s executive orders.
Another protest against ICE got underway in downtown Chicago on Friday afternoon.
The decision is tied to the president’s order to end birthright citizenship.
The president is praising the ruling, but immigrant groups are calling it a devastating loss.
This decision does not signal any move by the justices towards ending birthright citizenship. It simply curtails the power of lower courts.
“The power being restricted belongs to the lower federal courts and the district courts, which handle the majority of cases,” noted Dan Rodriguez, a law professor at Northwestern University.
By a ruling of 6-3 along ideological lines, the high court said lower court judges cannot grant nationwide injunctions, even if the cases legally violate the U.S. Constitution, which means the president can go ahead and implement his order to end birthright citizenship. He signed it on Inauguration Day, ending automatic citizenship to anyone born in the United States.
“What they’re doing is expanding the group of people who don’t have full rights in this country. And they won’t stop with immigrants or the children of immigrants; everybody is at risk,” said Tovia Siegel, with Resurrection Project.
The Pilsen-based Immigrant justice organization the Resurrection Project calls the ruling devastating.
“I think that this is a call to all people to stand with their immigrant neighbors, right? With immigrant communities to come together, understanding that their safety is deeply intertwined with the safety of immigrants,” Siegel said.
Nothing in the Supreme Court’s ruling speaks to the constitutional merits of birthright citizenship. Trump is confident the high court will eventually hear the case and rule in his favor to end it.
“This lets us go the and finally win that case because hundreds of thousands people are pouring into our country because of birthright citizenship, and it wasn’t meant for that reason,” Trump said.
Several legal experts disagree. They say birthright citizenship is a settled case enshrined in the 14th Amendment. There is a possibility the issue never makes it to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“It could be that all of the courts of appeals that come to consider the issue of birthright citizenship rule against the Trump administration,” Rodriguez said.
Trump’s order to end birthright has a 30-day grace period before it takes effect. So right now, any child born is in the U.S. is an American citizen.
The decision also impacts national injunctions on other executive orders, such as funding freezes or Department of Government Efficiency cuts.
The Loop protest came as Illinois Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi introduced a bill that would limit military deployments against peaceful protests.
The proposed legislation comes after President Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard to Los Angeles and his threats to ramp up ICE enforcement in Chicago.
The proposed bill would make it harder for any president to send in active-duty troops without a formal request from state leaders.
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