CA Sues Trump Administration Over ‘Birthright’ Order.

By a CalMatters criminal justice reporter Nigel Duara:

Resistive state Circuit 2 officially began on Tuesday, when California filed its first lawsuit against the new Donald Trump administration.

Eighteen states, including California, filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging Trump’s executive order, which take away the right to guaranteed citizenship to everyone born in the country.

• California Attorney General Rob Bontaat a news conference on Tuesday: “I’m deeply disappointed that we’re here, and I’m also not surprised at all. This is not some theoretical legal disagreement. It would deprive Americans of their most basic rights.

Bonta and the other attorneys general are asking the court for an immediate injunction to stay the February 19 order while they hear the case in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

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

“According to the order, such children born after February 19, 2025 — who would arguably be considered citizens if they had been born two days ago — will have no legal status in the eyes of the federal government,” the lawsuit alleges. “All of them will be subject to deportation and many will be stateless. They will lose the ability to access countless 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, it’s Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, and the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program.

The executive order claims that undocumented people are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the US and therefore not protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

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

• Farber: “I think there is virtually no support among experts for the view that people who are born in the United States and whose parents are not in the country legally are somehow not under the jurisdiction of the United States.”

Case Tracking: As Trump’s term ends, CalMatters tracks the lawsuits California is bringing against the administration. See it here.

Besides the litany of executive orders, so does Trump lead his administration Monday to direct more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to people in “other parts of the state … that desperately need a reliable water supply.”

But his note is causing confusion among some environmental expertswrites CalMatters’ Alastair Bland.

The memo calls for restoring rules drafted during Trump’s first term in 2019, which will take precedence alternative proposal — unveiled in December but years in the making — developed by the administrations of Biden and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Compared to that plan, Trump wrote that his rules “would allow massive amounts of water to flow” to the Central Valley and Southern California and that “huge supplies of water are currently flowing wastefully into the Pacific Ocean.”

But there’s one catch: Biden and Newsom’s plan will actually deliver more water in Southern California than Trump’s, according to an environmental analysis of the plan.

• John Rosenfieldscience director of the environmental watchdog group San Francisco Baykeeper: “It’s not worded with any precision and it builds in a lot of false premises. This shows an incredible lack of understanding of how California water works.

Read more here.

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

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

Of the $1 billion in recovery money, $1 million will go specifically to rebuild affected schools. Like CalMatters Carolyn Jones explains, at least a dozen schools were damaged, including at least five that were completely destroyed.

Money from a recently passed bond measure for the repair of a school base is is also expected to help. The state will likely prioritize schools devastated by the fires — meaning some schools are still there in dire need of critical repairs can miss.

Read more here.

Wildfire Bulletin: CalMatters has partnered with PBS SoCal, LAist and KCRW to offer a free newsletter that provides new and accurate information about the fires in Southern California. Read on edition and subscribe.