AAA Newsletter (9/9/26)

Happy Fall Semester, new and returning AAA members!

I’m Allison, your News Chair! Every other week, I bring you news relevant to the Asian American community, highlighting important political issues, activists, and community events.

Here’s what’s been happening this summer…

1. Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship
2. Recent poll on the impacts of immigration policies
3. Uncertainty surrounding mail-in ballots
4. Plans to close the National Archives at San Francisco

Supreme Court Upholds Birthright Citizenship

Birthright citizenship became a tense discussion this summer as Trump announced an executive order titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” The order prevented children born on U.S. soil from obtaining citizenship if their parents had student, work, or tourist visas, or had entered the country illegally. On June 30, 2026, however, the Supreme Court blocked Trump’s executive order as a violation of the 14th Amendment and upheld birthright citizenship.

Birthright citizenship’s history owes an important part of its history to Asian Americans, since the landmark 1898 case United States v. Wong Kim Ark first legally expanded birthright citizenship to immigrants. Wong Kim Ark was born in California to Chinese-American immigrants—who were both lawful and permanent U.S. residents—but was denied citizenship by immigration officials who cited the Chinese Exclusion Act. He brought the case to the Supreme Court which ruled 6-2 that the Fourteenth Amendment does guarantee birthright citizenship, regardless of race or nationality.

Lower courts have continued to uphold the Supreme Court’s ruling, even through Trump’s second attempt to restrict birthright citizenship on August 6th.

Read more here.

The Impact of Trump’s Immigration Policies

Immigration policies impact the AAPI community as a whole—far from just undocumented Asian immigrants. A new poll from AAPI Data and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that most AAPI adults agree the U.S. no longer provides opportunities for immigrants. Further, around half have experienced upheaval of some kind—whether being detained or deported; cancelling travel plans; or avoiding school, work or otherwise hesitating to leave the house.

Read more here.

Mail-in Voting and the AAPI Community

16 million Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders will be eligible to vote in the upcoming midterm elections. In 2024, approximately 58% (8.3 million) of eligible AAPI voters cast a vote, making the fastest-growing racial voting bloc. Voter turn-out is incredibly important, but recently, the processes have become more uncertain.

Trump has consistently held a strong position against mail-in voting and raised claims of voter fraud using mail-in ballots. On March 31, he signed an executive order requiring the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to compile lists of voting-age U.S. citizens in every state, using incomplete data sources. Further, it requires the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to determine who can vote. Citizens would have to send sensitive voter data before receiving their mail-in ballots.

This executive order is currently under debate in the Supreme Court, and can have major consequences, especially for Asian Americans. More than any other racial group, Asian Americans vote by mail-in ballots. These processes could potentially disenfranchise many eligible voters and undermine voter privacy.

Read more here.

Trump Administration Targets Important Records for AAPI Communities

The Trump administration plans to close the National Archives at San Francisco—which currently stores many important records on the Japanese American detention camps, Chinese Exclusion Act, Native and Pacific Islander history, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, and more. Many of these records on immigration to the West Coast and subsequent citizenship are not digitized and difficult to access. Closing the San Francisco branch may only exacerbate these difficulties.

Groups like Save Our National Archives are currently rallying to prevent this closure, starting an online petition, which has so far collected over 10,000 signatures.

Read more here.