Today, the U.S. House passed a reconciliation bill eliminating key clean energy tax credits. There’s no way to sugarcoat it. This is a serious challenge for our industry, especially residential solar and small businesses.
Thanks to pressure from clean energy champions, the Senate version softened some of the most harmful provisions. It removed the proposed excise tax on wind and solar, dropped FEOC restrictions that would have penalized projects using certain foreign components, and extended eligibility for commercial and utility-scale projects that begin construction within a year of enactment through 2027. But the Section 25D tax credit is now set to expire on December 31, 2025, with residential projects losing eligibility for any expenditures made after that date. That puts real pressure on small clean energy businesses to adjust planning and project timelines.
It is disappointing to see Congress roll back what was once bipartisan common sense. Since 2005, clean energy tax credits have helped families lower energy bills, driven innovation, and supported hundreds of thousands of jobs. Reversing that support now risks slowing the momentum we have built together.
Installers will face pressure to adjust pipelines to meet an unusually short timeline. Developers may need to reassess projects they can no longer bring online before the new deadline. The result may be fewer jobs, fewer local investments, and reduced progress at a time when clean energy leadership is urgently needed.
Still, I am hopeful.
Over the past eight years, I’ve seen clean energy businesses across Wisconsin grow exponentially. I’ve watched electricians, designers, sales teams, and service professionals build lasting careers and deepen their roots in Wisconsin communities. Federal incentives helped lay the foundation, but they did not create the deep commitment we see today. That credit belongs to all of you and the lasting impact of your work across the state. I am disappointed by this decision, but my belief in this community has not wavered. This industry has weathered tariffs, shifting political winds, and policy uncertainty before and has come back stronger every time.
RENEW is ready to support you through this next chapter. We will continue to advocate for state and local policies that strengthen the business case for renewables. We will work to remove barriers to clean energy access, elevate your success stories, and help businesses adapt to the new federal landscape. Because we still believe that clean energy is the best way to build a healthy, thriving Wisconsin.
I encourage you all to take some time this weekend to rest and recharge. Next week, we’ll begin digging into the legislation and planning for the days, weeks, and years ahead.
(The Center Square) – Despite Republican Assembly leaders and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers having reached a budget deal to appropriate the interest earnings from unspent COVID-19 relief funds toward budget initiatives, Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Oconto, claims there is still $4…
(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers used a partial veto to remove Green Bay Correctional Institution's closure date from the 2025-27 Wisconsin biennial budget early Thursday morning.
(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s hospitals are much more focused on the money they will get under the new state budget than the money they’re going to have to pay.
(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed the state’s budget into law in the early morning hours Thursday after the state Legislature passed the bill during sessions that spanned all of Wednesday with the Assembly running into early…
If you or someone you know is planning to drink for the holiday, there are safe rides being provided.
To help reduce drunken driving and encourage safer celebrations this Independence Day, Pemberton Personal Injury Law Firm is providing free Uber rides, worth up to $25, for eligible Wisconsin residents on the night of July 4.
How it works
The offer is available to Wisconsin residents from 4 p.m. on Friday July 4, to 9 a.m. on Saturday, July 5.
You just make sure you have an Uber account set up.
We’ve learned a bit about American society amid the rhetoric over President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill.” For example, unauthorized immigrants don’t get Medicaid, but millions of working-age adults have gone on it. We’ve also knocked down some false claims about the bill along the way.
As of July 3, the nearly 900-page measure, filled with tax breaks and spending cuts, had moved toward passage but was still being debated in Congress.
Wisconsin Watch fact briefs have cleared up misstatements about the bill itself and about programs it would cut, such as Medicaid and food stamps.
Note: Our fact briefs answer a factual question yes or no based on the facts available when the brief is published.
Here’s a look.
Would the ‘big beautiful bill’ provide the largest federal spending cut in US history?
The largest-cut claim was made by Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, who represents part of southeastern Wisconsin. His office cited a $1.7 trillion claim made by the Trump administration.
Even if the net cut were $1.7 trillion, it would be second to a 2011 law that decreased spending by $2 trillion and would be the third-largest cut as a percentage of gross domestic product, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
But when Fitzgerald made his statement, the bill’s net decreases were $1.2 trillion, after taking its spending increases into account, and $680 billion after additional interest payments on the debt.
Have millions of nondisabled, working-age adults been added to Medicaid?
Millions of nondisabled working-age adults have enrolled in Medicaid since the Affordable Care Act expanded eligibility in 2014.
Medicaid is health insurance for low-income people.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that in 2024, average monthly Medicaid enrollment included 34 million nonelderly, nondisabled adults — 15 million made eligible by Obamacare.
Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who represents most of northern Wisconsin, complained about “able-bodied” adults being added, saying they are “draining” Medicaid.
The nonpartisan health policy organization KFF said 44% of the working-age adults on Medicaid, some of whom are temporarily disabled, worked full time and 20% part time, many for small companies, and aren’t eligible for health insurance.
Are unauthorized immigrants eligible for federal Medicaid coverage?
Trump’s bill proposedreducing federal Medicaid funds to those states.
Opponents of the bill, including Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, who represents the Madison area, said Trump administration officials claimed that unauthorized immigrants receive traditional Medicaid.
Do half the residents in one rural Wisconsin county receive food stamps?
In April, 2,004 residents of Menominee County in northeast Wisconsin received benefits from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
SNAP, formerly known as food stamps and called FoodShare in Wisconsin, provides food assistance for low-income people.
Menominee County’s rate was cited by U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., at the Wisconsin Democratic Party convention. He commented on the bill’s provision to remove an estimated 3.2 million people from SNAP, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Is Donald Trump’s megabill projected to add more than $2 trillion to the national debt?
Nonpartisan analysts estimate that the “big beautiful bill” would add at least $2 trillion to the national debt over 10 years.
The debt, which is the accumulation of annual spending that exceeds revenues, is $36 trillion.
U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee, and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., claimed the bill would add trillions.
Among other things, the bill would make 2017 individual income tax cuts permanent, add work requirements for Medicaid and food assistance, and add funding for defense and more deportations.
After we published this brief, the Senate passed a version of the bill that would increase the debt by $3.3 trillion.
Would ‘the vast majority’ of Americans get a 65% tax increase if the GOP megabill doesn’t become law?
The Tax Foundation estimates that if the cuts expire, 62% of taxpayers would see a tax increase in 2026. The average taxpayer’s increase would be 19.4% ($2,955).
GOP U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who represents western Wisconsin, made the 65% claim.
Do you have questions about this bill and how it affects Wisconsin? Submit them here, through our Ask Wisconsin Watch project.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed a new two-year budget in the early morning hours Thursday in a race against Congress to ensure the state gets a federal Medicaid match that it would lose under President Trump’s tax and spending cuts package.
In an extraordinarily rapid succession of events, Evers and Republican lawmakers unveiled a compromise budget deal on Tuesday, the Senate passed it Wednesday night, and hours later just before 1 a.m. on Thursday, the Assembly passed it. Evers signed it in his conference room minutes later.
Democrats who voted against the $111 billion spending bill said it didn’t go far enough in meeting their priorities of increasing funding for schools, child care and expanding Medicaid. But Evers, who hasn’t decided on whether he will seek a third term, hailed the compromise as the best deal that could be reached.
“I believe most Wisconsinites would say that compromise is a good thing because that is how government is supposed to work,” Evers said.
Wisconsin’s budget would affect nearly every person in the battleground state. Income taxes would be cut for working people and retirees by $1.4 billion, sales taxes would be eliminated on residential electric bills, and it would cost more to get a driver’s license, buy license plates and title a vehicle.
Unprecedented speed
There was urgency to pass the budget because of one part that increases an assessment on hospitals to help fund the state’s Medicaid program and hospital provider payments. Medicaid cuts up for final approval this week in Congress cap how much states can get from the federal government through those fees.
The budget would increase Wisconsin’s assessment rate from 1.8% to the federal maximum of 6% to access federal matching funds. But if the federal bill is enacted first, Wisconsin could not raise the fee, putting $1.5 billion in funding for rural hospitals at risk.
In the rush to get done, Republicans took the highly unusual move of bringing the budget up for votes on the same day. In at least the past 50 years, the budget has never passed both houses on the same day.
“We need to get this thing done today so we have the opportunity to access federal funding,” Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said at the start of debate just before 8 p.m. Wednesday.
Governors typically take several days to review and sign the budget after it’s passed, but Evers took just minutes.
Bipartisan compromise
In a concession to the Democratic governor, Republicans also agreed to spend more money on special education services in K-12 schools, subsidize child care costs and give the Universities of Wisconsin its biggest increase in nearly two decades. The plan would also likely result in higher property taxes in many school districts due to no increase in general aid to pay for operations.
The budget called for closing a troubled aging prison in Green Bay by 2029, but Evers used his partial veto to strike that provision. He left in $15 million in money to support the closure, but objected to setting a date without a clear plan for how to get it done.
Republicans need Democratic votes
The Senate passed the budget 19-14, with five Democrats joining with 14 Republicans to approve it. Four Republicans joined 10 Democrats in voting no. The Assembly passed it 59-39 with six Democrats in support. One Republican voted against it.
Democratic senators were brought into budget negotiations in the final days to secure enough votes to pass it.
“It’s a bipartisan deal,” Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein said before the vote. “I think everybody left the table wishing it was different, but this is something everyone has agreed on.”
Democrats said newly drawn legislative maps, which helped them pick up seats in November and narrow the Republican majorities, led to greater compromise this year.
“That gave us leverage, that gave us an opportunity to have a conversation,” Democratic Sen. Mark Spreitzer said.
But still, Spreitzer said the budget “fell far short of what was needed on our priorities.” He and other Democrats said it didn’t go far enough to help fund child care, K-12 schools and higher education, in particular.
Evers vetoes prison closure deadline
The budget called for closing a troubled aging prison in Green Bay by 2029, but Evers used his partial veto to strike that provision. He left in $15 million in money to support planning for the closure, but objected to setting a date without a clear plan for how to get it done.
The governor noted in his veto message that the state has “painful experience” with trying to close prisons without a fleshed-out plan, pointing out that the state’s youth prison remains open even though lawmakers passed a bill to close the facility in 2017.
“Green Bay Correctional Institution should close — on that much, the Legislature and I agree,” Evers wrote. “It is simply not responsible or tenable to require doing so by a deadline absent a plan to actually accomplish that goal by the timeline set.”
Jim Rafter, president of the village of Allouez, the suburb where the prison is located, issued a statement Friday saying the veto shows how broken state government has become.
“The time for studying has come and gone,” he said. “The village of Allouez and our community demand action and the certainty they deserve about when this facility will be closed.”
Governor kills grant as payback for ending stewardship
Evers used his partial veto powers to wipe out provisions in the budget that would have handed the town of Norway in southeastern Wisconsin’s Racine County an annual $100,000 grant to control water runoff from State Highway 36. The governor said in his veto message he eliminated the grant because Republicans refused to extend the Warren Knowles-Gaylord Nelson Stewardship Program.
That program provides funding for the state and outside groups to buy land for conservation and recreation. Republicans have complained for years that the program is too expensive and removes too much land from property tax rolls, hurting local municipalities. Funding is set to expire next year. Evers proposed allocating $1 billion to extend the program for another decade, but Republicans eliminated the provision.
Evers accused legislators in his veto message of abandoning their responsibility to continue the program while using the runoff grant to help “the politically connected few.” He did not elaborate.
The town of Norway lies within state Rep. Chuck Wichgers and Sen. Julian Bradley’s districts. Both are Republicans; Bradley sits on the Legislature’s powerful budget-writing committee. Emails to both their offices seeking comment weren’t immediately returned.
Rep. Tony Kurtz and Sen. Pat Testin, both Republicans, introduced a bill last month that would extend the stewardship program through mid-2030, but the measure has yet to get a hearing.
Associated Press writer Todd Richmond contributed to this report.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
This story was produced in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Investigative Journalism class taught in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Editor’s note: A UW-Madison police officer is under investigation after a student journalist presented allegations the officer engaged in unsolicited text communications with students and offered to help students avoid underage drinking tickets.
Wisconsin Watch is not naming the officer because he hasn’t been formally disciplined or accused of a crime. The allegations in the following story are based on interviews with 11 students who all spoke on the condition of anonymity, partly for fear of retaliation, but also in order to discuss activities, such as underage drinking and possessing fake IDs, that could result in legal or disciplinary consequences.
***
At last October’s bustling homecoming football game at Camp Randall, a University of Wisconsin-Madison police officer approached a sophomore who recognized him from a recent safety presentation he had given at her sorority.
The officer struck up a conversation with the sophomore and her friends, eventually asking Kate — whose name is a pseudonym — for her phone number.
“I don’t know why he needed my number in the first place,” Kate said. “Every time he would walk by us, he’d stop and talk to us — you know how they patrol the bleachers? — he was just always hanging out around us there.”
Minutes later the officer began texting Kate to ask if she and her friends wanted food from the concession stands. The group agreed.
“Free food!” Kate recalled thinking.
He texted again: “Hot chocolate next game (eyes emoji). If you’re nice,” according to text messages Kate shared from the officer.
A UW-Madison police officer sent this text message to a student while on duty at a Badgers football game. The student interpreted it as flirtatious and inappropriate for someone in a position of power.
After supplying the stadium snacks, the officer asked Kate to get coffee with him later that week.
Kate dodged the question, hoping to laugh it off and watch the game. But after the game ended, another text popped up at 11:47 p.m. that night asking if she had chosen her coffee spot yet.
Kate texted her sorority chapter president and asked, “What should I do if (the officer) asked me to get coffee?”
The sorority president texted back, “Just don’t respond.”
“I literally just never responded to that,” Kate said. “It got to the point where he was trying to go on dates … because I was nice to him, he took it too far and wanted to make it more.”
Camp Randall Stadium on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus is shown on June 4, 2025, in this photo illustration. One student said a campus police officer sought her phone number at a football game and eventually asked her on a coffee date. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Kate was not the only student to experience unprofessional interactions with the same officer.
Accounts from 11 students, all of whom are affiliated with UW-Madison Greek organizations, describe how the same officer instigated texting relationships, asked female sources on coffee dates, relayed confidential police information to assist students in underage drinking and took students for rides in his squad car without first having them sign a liability waiver. Two male students interviewed for this story described their interactions with the officer positively, but female students viewed the contacts as inappropriate.
The officer’s behavior has persisted for at least four years, but was never the subject of a formal complaint, according to the UW-Madison Police Department. None of the students alleged the officer made any physical advances, and none agreed to go on a date with him.
“The UW-Madison Police Department became aware of the officer misconduct allegations when asked by the author for a comment for this article,” Assistant Chief Kari Sasso said in a statement. “We will review and investigate these claims as appropriate. There have been no formal complaints from community members, students or others regarding this officer. We hold our officers to the highest standards and take all allegations of officer misconduct seriously. We are committed to transparency and accountability within legal and policy boundaries.”
A spokesperson for UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin confirmed that an internal investigation is underway at UWPD.
The officer didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Gaining trust at safety presentations
The UW-Madison police officer serves as a downtown liaison community officer for an area that includes Langdon Street, where many of the university’s sorority and fraternity houses are located.
Preliminary communication between the officer and students often began within the bounds of his job description. Student leaders reached out to set up semiannual safety presentations at their organizations, largely for students under the legal drinking age.
The presentations cover campus safety, medical amnesty and behavior-based policing and are discussions intended to help students feel informed and educated from a reputable police source.
While intended to detail the potential consequences of underage alcohol consumption — not encourage it — the officer’s presentations were peppered with advice for students on how to continue illegally drinking without getting caught, according to an audio recording of one presentation.
University of Wisconsin-Madison sorority houses along Langdon Street are shown on June 4, 2025, in this photo illustration. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
In one presentation the officer told students he would alert underage students ahead of time regarding pre-planned bar checks to help them avoid potential citations — a breach of confidential police information.
Bar checks, often called “raids” by students, serve to ensure bars aren’t serving students under the legal drinking age of 21. Police officers enter the premises while others block exits, requesting IDs from all patrons. Underage patrons in the bar face a fine of up to $1,250 for using a fake ID.
The student sources said over the last four years the officer shared confidential police information regarding bar checks with them over the phone, warning them in advance of the bars Madison police would be checking and the general timeline of the check.
One student in a leadership position also said he encouraged them to share the information with their personal contacts.
“It’s helpful to us, obviously — also kind of crazy that he goes behind the police station’s back,” Kate said.
The UW-Madison student who provided this text said she received it from a UW-Madison police officer at 11:47 p.m. the night of the football game where he was on duty.
In audio recorded as part of this investigation during one of the officer’s standard safety presentations this past school year, he told freshmen and sophomores, “I promise you I will always help you. If I’m ever involved in a bar check, it’s because I want to make sure that the city cops are actually treating you all with respect.”
“And every now and then I might hold whatever door I’m manning open for the three or four of you to leave without any real consequences — but don’t tell my boss that. I say that because I’ve actually done it,” he continued. “I don’t like bar checks. I hate the fact that you all are in the safest place to be consuming alcohol, rather than a basement or a house party or an apartment, and we’re jamming you all up by giving you tickets.”
The officer also examined the students’ fake IDs, checking if they are realistic enough to allow access at local bars. Kate was one of the students who offered her ID for inspection.
“That’s how it started,” Kate said. “He was basically like, ‘I owe you a coffee for volunteering.’”
Seth Stoughton, a University of South Carolina law professor and a nationally recognized policing expert, reviewed portions of the audio and said the UW-Madison officer’s presentation is not a standard police presentation on underage drinking.
“What those talks usually look like are how students can avoid breaking the law, how students can avoid trouble — not how students can break the law and not get in trouble for it,” Stoughton said.
Texting relationships with students
The officer only contacted students about bar check alerts over a phone call, multiple sources said.
“This would be the type of evidence that we use to establish knowledge of guilt; when he’s telling folks, ‘Oh no, I don’t want to put any of that in writing, I don’t want there to be a record of it,’” Stoughton said. “Well, that’s because you are aware that the record could be used against you in some way. So that seems problematic.”
A UW-Madison police officer offered to buy drinks for a group of students, including some he had met during a presentation at their sorority on campus safety.
After obtaining students’ cellphone numbers, the officer began reaching out to them outside of professional protocols: regularly checking in, calling and asking them to meet up.
For the nine female students interviewed for this story, his frequent check-ins quickly caused discomfort.
“When you’re in it, you think all these things are to help you, and then the further down in the year it got, when I was working with him specifically, I felt like I was putting myself in danger more than being protected,” said a former sorority executive member. “I didn’t want to work with him ever, and I also warned other people, like do not involve yourself. He’s not doing anything for us.”
Caroline, a pseudonym for a recently graduated senior at UW-Madison, felt similarly.
“I remember us being like, ‘Oh my god, he’s texting you now?’ He went through people, he was always texting different people,” Caroline said.
While females in leadership positions said he straddled the line between a professional and personal relationship, others who didn’t serve on executive boards or in organizational leadership, including Kate, are less certain about why he was texting them in the first place — saying there was no professional justification for his outreach.
“All of our texts are very playful and joke-y in what he was saying — it wasn’t like he was professional,” Kate said.
Offering rides without waivers
Some students and former students claimed that the officer offered them rides in his squad car.
One source took him up on that offer.
Allen, a recently graduated UW-Madison student also identified with a pseudonym, claimed he went for a drive with the officer in January 2023 when he was a sophomore.
“He picked me up in his car and we drove around for like 20 minutes. He asked me about myself. He really made an effort to establish a friendship and a relationship with me, which I really appreciated,” Allen said. “He was just a real beacon of guidance.”
Camp Randall Stadium is shown on June 4, 2025, in this photo illustration. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Records of ride-along waivers signed between Jan. 1, 2022, and Jan. 1, 2025, show only two people signed liability waivers for UW-Madison police ride-alongs over the past three years.
Allen’s name did not appear in any of the signed waivers. He also doesn’t recall signing a waiver.
“I feel like I would remember if I had to sign something,” he said.
Stoughton said it’s a liability issue, should a police officer choose to disregard mandatory waivers. Typically officers will alert dispatchers of a pickup and drop-off to ensure nothing inappropriate happens.
“There are procedures that are in place to help protect everyone’s interest: the police agencies, the individual officers and the community members,” Stoughton continued. “(It) sounds like he is just completely ignoring those standard protocols.”
Male students appreciative, female students uncomfortable
Three UW students, two males and one female, expressed gratitude for the officer’s help in keeping them out of police trouble, especially those who are under 21.
“I do think there is a very deep appreciation for him making himself as available as possible to everyone, in a plethora of different events and situations,” one fraternity leader said.
The UW-Madison student interpreted additional texts from the UW-Madison police officer as overly friendly and unprofessional.
Allen felt similarly. “I was very blown away by his willingness to not just be an administrator, but to be a friend. Not a parental figure — an adviser, but more than that, much more friendly than that,” he said. “We developed a personal friendship.”
But the female students mostly interpreted the officer’s behavior differently.
“His actions blurred the line between authority and familiarity, leaving students unsure of his true intentions,” the sorority leader said. “What I would’ve changed was his approach. Instead of trying to be our ‘friend’ and making us feel like we had an inside connection with campus law enforcement, he should have taken a more traditional and professional role.”
University policy W-5048 covers relationships between those in unequal levels of power, stating that a relationship between an employee and student is “not appropriate when they occur between an employee of the university and a student over whom the employee has or potentially will have supervisory, advisory, evaluative, or other authority or influence.”
Stoughton said there’s a line in policing, with making yourself available on one side, but affirmatively seeking out individuals in a nonorganizational capacity on the other.
“It doesn’t surprise me that the female students have a slightly different perspective than male students because male students may be — for several complicated reasons — just less cognizant of that power dynamic,” Stoughton said. “Female students may be much more aware of that power dynamic. It’s the officer’s job, though, to also be aware of it.”
If you have a complaint about the conduct of a UW-Madison Police Department officer, you can file a complaint online or call the department and speak with a supervisor, according to UW-Madison spokesperson John Lucas. The department typically requires a person’s name and doesn’t accept anonymous complaints.
This is an ongoing story. If you or someone you know has had similar encounters with a UWPD officer, please let us know at tips@wisconsinwatch.org.
One mile outside Milwaukee, 25 farmers — most of them Hmong — grow produce at the Mequon Nature Preserve. They're part of a project by a Milwaukee farmer's market, which broke ground at the preserve in 2018, aiming to relieve the pressure of dwindling affordable farmland on the market's vendors.
High meat prices mean Wisconsinites are paying more for a summer cookout this year. The Wisconsin Farm Bureau's annual survey of grocery store prices found a meal for 10 people cost $69.03, coming in 4 percent higher than in 2024.
American Family Field, formerly Miller Park, opened in 2001. The ballpark's most unique feature is likely its movable roof, which is made up of 12,000 tons of steel.
Last summer, downtown Milwaukee’s Baird Center hosted the Republican National Convention. This week, the convention center has hosted a very different scene — thousands of fencers competing in over 90 different fencing events.
“Our members do virtually everything from providing multiple levels of care to facility maintenance,” the union stated. “Non-profit healthcare workers should be able to afford their own healthcare.”
Peninsula Players is recognized as the oldest resident summer theater program in the country. This summer, the company continues a nearly century-old legacy of performing in Door County.
An eleventh hour amendment made in the Senate will allow renewable energy projects that begin construction by 2026 or come online by 2027 to receive tax credits, which is slightly less restrictive than a previous version of the bill.
A child celebrates Independence Day | Getty Images Creative
Your citizenship, like mine, is an accident of birth.
You were born here. So was I. The rub is I was born to immigrants who were not yet legal residents.
That makes me a birthright citizen under the 14th Amendment. That also allegedly makes me an “anchor baby.” I’m referring to the assertion that immigrants have come to the U.S. and have babies only so they can gain legal residency later.
Real life is more complicated than that for millions of immigrants who come to the U.S. for a variety of reasons — whether they are fleeing violence in their home countries or simply seeking a better life, as generations in our nation of immigrants have done.
Does the immigration status of my parents really matter? How long ago did your immigrant ancestors first step foot here? How many generations does it take for citizenship to be “deserved?”
The Constitution’s 14th Amendment says unequivocally that I’m as deserving as the accident of your birth makes you. If you are born here, you’re a U.S. citizen. Me, too. That’s birthright citizenship.
On Jan. 20, newly inaugurated President Donald Trump issued an executive order ending automatic citizenship for babies born to parents who don’t have lawful status in the U.S.
In a recent 6-3 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court did not address the constitutionality of Trump’s order. Instead, it ruled that lower courts have no power to issue nationwide injunctions, voiding district courts’ rulings that Trump may not deport people who have been U.S. citizens all their lives.
After the ruling, some groups began the slow process to challenge the law in a nationwide class action lawsuit. But until the Court decides otherwise, the fundamental question whether someone is considered a U.S. citizen will have different answers in different states.
Meanwhile, raids on immigrant communities continue.
The Trump administration is clearly emboldened. The Supreme Court’s ruling allows the ban on birthright citizenship to take effect in those 28 states that didn’t challenge the president’s initial executive order. And the administration is counting on the high court to see it his way on the constitutional question eventually.
At this point, I lack the confidence to say it won’t.
I understand the argument that children born to U.S. citizens are more deserving than I am. “But my ancestors emigrated here legally,” say more “deserving” citizens. Never mind that the barriers to coming to this country legally have moved up and down. Today, even people with demonstrable asylum claims are being shut out.
Back in the day, if you showed up to these shores, you simply got in. It wasn’t until 1924 that the U.S. started enforcing quotas for national origin. Aside from immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe (deemed then as too foreign, i.e. not white enough), these quotas favored other white immigrants. And it specifically targeted Asians for exclusion.
This preference for white immigrants continues. White immigrants from, say, Canada and Ireland, don’t seem to be affected by this attempted purge.
So let’s be honest. Many of your immigrant ancestors were legal simply by default.
Other people will argue that ICE is targeting immigrants who have committed violent crimes. A couple of big problems: according to the libertarian CATO Institute, 65% of those taken by ICE have no criminal record and 93% have not committed a violent crime.
The issue is not criminality. It’s race. All across the country, Latinos are being detained because of the color of their skin.
Some folks insist that the 14th Amendment dealt only with the children of slaves freed after the Civil War.
Here’s what the amendment says: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof (my emphasis), are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Clearly, even those here without documents are subject to U.S. and state laws. That puts them under U.S. jurisdiction. The courts have confirmed birthright citizenship as early as the late 19th Century (United States v. Wong Kim Ark.).
Is military service an indication of deserving citizenship?
I contend that a chief quality of those who deserve citizenship is that they don’t take their citizenship for granted. They know their parents sacrificed much to make it happen. We are proud Americans. We belong here. And we deserve to stay.
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