(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



The Answer Is California State Citizenship [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-07-14

California Citizenship Project

Synopsis:

The state of California has approximately 2.6 million residents who do not have legal status to live within the United States of America. It is estimated that this represents almost eight percent (8%) of the total population of the state. The vast majority of these individuals are law-abiding, gainfully employed, and tax paying members of our respective communities. These residents of the state of California are over-represented in the vital employment sectors of agricultural, landscaping, care-giving and physical plant maintenance work. Furthermore, although many of these individuals have been living peaceably within the state, the United States Congress has refused to give this generation of immigrants a realistic opportunity to become citizens of the United States, and therefore forever relegating them to live and work in the economic shadows of our society



The current President of the United States, with the support of both houses of Congress and US Supreme Court, has implemented steps to conduct mass deportations of these individuals (and potentially their US citizen family members). The stated goal is to deport ALL 2.6 million Californians who do not have legal status (and in some cases revoke to legal status of others).



Although many hope that the national electoral process will see a change in the composition of Congress that will prevent the full implementation of the President’s plan to deport these 2.6 million Californians, given the rapid advancement of the Presidents militarization of the mass deportation effort, the next Congressional elections may be too far away to prevent hundreds of thousands (or even a million or more) of our fellow Californians from being interred in deportation camps and ultimately deported or forced to be slave labor when the deportee's country of origin refuses their return.

Therefore, unless seemingly radical steps are undertaken by California's elected representatives and law enforcement authorities in the state of California, it is clear that 2.6 million Californians will be rounded up, interred indefinitely, and/or deported.

However, there is a way to prevent this from happening. The California Democratic super-majority in the legislature can adopt a law conferring "California State Citizenship" upon any foreign born person who has resided continuously in the state for a period of years (for example 7 years) without any criminal record. California has the authority pursuant to the rights reserved to the states under the 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution to confer State citizenship upon anyone in its sovereign jurisdiction. The essential right of any sovereign state, at its core, is the right to determine who are full members of its society. The 14th Amendment of the US Constitution did not preempt this right, but rather prevented a state from denying the benefits of citizenship to anyone born within the jurisdiction of the United States



Once the state confers "State Citizenship Rights" on foreign born individuals who pass the residency and good character tests, then the various law enforcement agencies within the state could protect our immigrant communities from being attacked by militarized patrols seeking to implement the federal goal of mass deportations.

Without conferring State Citizenship Rights to our fellow Californians, the state is actually powerless to prevent the federal government from conducting its mass deportation operation, since our fellow Californians do not in fact have any legal basis to be within the United States or the state of California. Conferring state citizenship rights allows the state to take affirmative steps to protect our fellow community members who form a vital and necessary part of our State.



Note: (The grant of State Citizenship will have to specifically exclude any rights of US citizenship, like voting is federal elections, unless and until the federal government grants such rights).

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/7/14/2333443/-The-Answer-Is-State-Citizenship?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/

You are viewing proxied material from magical.fish. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.