Santa Cruz Standard

City of Santa Cruz issued the following announcement on Nov. 16.

The City of Santa Cruz announced it has joined Santa Clara County, Los Angeles Unified School District and nine other cities and counties in the filing of an amicus brief in the State of New York lawsuit against President Donald J. Trump.

The lawsuit before the U.S. Supreme Court challenges the President’s Memorandum directing that undocumented immigrants be excluded from the population count used to apportion congressional seats. A three-judge lower court in New York concluded that this memorandum was unlawful. In a related case, a three-judge court in California found that the memorandum violated both the statutes governing the census and the U.S. Constitution.

The plaintiffs contend that the President’s memorandum violates constitutional and statutory requirements to include all persons in the congressional apportionment base, irrespective of citizenship or immigration status. The plaintiffs also contend that the memorandum violates the Fifth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause because it is “motivated by discriminatory animus toward Hispanics and immigrant communities of color.”                 

“The stakes of this case are significant. As the New York court found, based on expert testimony in that case, if the Memorandum were allowed to go into effect, several states –including Texas, California, New Jersey, New York, Arizona, Florida, and Illinois—could lose congressional seats,” Santa Cruz City Attorney Tony Condotti said of the case. 

The brief focuses on three issues:

• According to the relevant constitutional and statutory provisions, residents—regardless of immigration status—have always been counted for purposes of representation.
• The many ways undocumented immigrants are tied to and contribute to our communities—including as longtime residents, members of mixed-status households with U.S. citizens, parents of children in our schools, and important workers in our local labor forces, and as taxpayers. The brief will highlight undocumented individuals’ vital role during the COVID-19 pandemic as workers in essential industries, including agriculture/food processing, healthcare, and disinfecting/cleaning services.
• Undocumented individuals, no less than other residents of the community, have an important stake in policy debates and legislation. Thus excluding them from the population count will harm representational equality.

The amicus brief was filed by the County of Santa Clara, along with the City of Santa Cruz, Calif.; the County of Alameda, Calif.; Cook County, Ill.; the County of Cameron, Texas; the County of Dallas, Texas; the County of Travis, Texas; the City of Alameda, Calif.; the City of Oakland, Calif.; the City of Sacramento, Calif.; the City of Santa Monica, Calif.; and the Los Angeles Unified School District. 

Original source can be found here.