Happy New Year 2025

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CA lawmakers introduce bill protecting girls from trans athletes after state refuses to follow Trump’s order

After California took a stance refusing to follow President Donald Trump’s executive order banning trans athletes from girls’ and women’s sports, state Republicans are taking matters into their own hands.

On Friday, California lawmakers introduced three bills in the state legislature aimed to combat trans inclusion. One bill, which was introduced by Assemblymember Bill Essayli, focused specifically on sports. His bill would require that students use all school facilities only play on sports teams based on their biological sex and not their gender identity.

“We know the state of California is going to do everything it can to resist and avoid compliance with federal law, so it’s our role to try to force change at the state and local level,” Essayli said at a press conference outside the state capital building in Sacramento Friday.

Former San Jose State University volleyball coach, who was suspended and then let go from the program after filing a Title IX complaint over the school’s handling of a trans player last season, spoke at Friday’s press conference just days after her home was shot at. Batie-Smoose told Fox News Digital she believes she was “targetted.” Police have not determined a suspect or motive.

“We need to make sure there’s DNA testing and moving forward there’s only women playing in women’s sports,” Batie-Smoose said at the press conference. “We definitely need to continue this fight and make sure that laws and legislation is changed so that we can have safe spaces for women and women in sports.”

Essayli’s bill would reverse a current law in California that protects trans athletes in girls’ and women’s sports.

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A law called AB 1266 has been in effect since 2014, and gives California students at scholastic and collegiate levels the right to “participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.”

The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) said it will continue to follow that law, even after Trump’s executive order went into effect, in a previous statement provided to Fox News Digital.

The U.S. Department of Education announced earlier this week that it is launching a Title IX investigation into the CIF over potential Title IX violations for its refusal to comply with Trump’s order.

In addition, residents have held protests and threatened lawsuits in response to the CIF’s current stance.

Essayli’s bill is the second proposal that California has seen to address the issue in 2025 alone.

California State Assembly member Kate Sanchez announced on Jan. 7 that she is introducing a bill to ban trans athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports.

Sanchez will propose the Protect Girls’ Sports Act to the state legislature. Currently, 25 states have similar laws in effect.

TEEN GIRLS OPEN UP ON TRANS ATHLETE SCANDAL THAT TURNED THEIR HIGH SCHOOL INTO A CULTURE WAR BATTLEGROUND

“Young women who have spent years training and sacrificing to compete at the highest level are now forced to compete against individuals with undeniable biological advantages. It’s not just unfair – it’s disheartening and dangerous,” Sanchez said in a statement announcing the bill.

California’s enabling of trans athletes to compete with girls and women in the state has resulted in multiple controversies over the issue over the last year alone. Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, California, is currently embroiled in one of the most contentious local controversies on the issue.

A school board meeting by the Riverside Unified School District on Dec. 19 featured a parade of parents berating the board for allowing a trans athlete on the Martin Luther King girls’ cross-country team. A lawsuit filed by two girls on the team alleges that their T-shirts in protest of that player were compared to swastikas simply because they said “Save Girls Sports.”

The father of a girl who lost her varsity spot to the trans athlete previously told Fox News Digital that his daughter and other girls at the school were told “transgenders have more rights than cisgenders” by school administrators when they protested the athlete’s participation.

In San Diego, a middle school was recently thrust into local controversy because of a transgender student using the girls’ locker room. San Elijo Middle School previously provided a statement to Fox News Digital, crediting its enabling of the transgender student to access the girls’ locker room to the school’s obligation of following state law.

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted against a measure to carry out the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which would prevent trans athletes from competing in girls’ sports or entering girls’ locker rooms, despite pleas from multiple parents at the meeting to take action to protect the girls at the school.

Meanwhile, Stone Ridge Christian High School’s girls’ volleyball team was scheduled to face San Francisco Waldorf in the Northern California Division 6 tournament but forfeited in an announcement just before the match over the presence of a trans athlete on the team.

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Transgender athlete supporter Kyle Harp, left, of Riverside holds the progress pride flag as “Save Girls Sports” supporters Lori Lopez and her dad Pete Pickering, both of Riverside, listen to the debate as they join the overflow crowd converging outside the Riverside Unified School District meeting Thursday night to debate the rights of transgender athletes to compete in high school sports Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Before that, a transgender volleyball player was booed and harassed at an Oct. 12 match between Notre Dame Belmont in Belmont, California, against Half Moon Bay High School, according to ABC 7. Half Moon Bay rostered the transgender athlete.

The two other bills that were introduced Friday, by Essayli and freshman Assemblymember Leticia Castillo, focus on empowering parents to remove their children from settings and situations that promote transgender ideology in public schools.

“Reestablishing the primacy of parental rights over dangerous indoctrination is a critical first step in reestablishing trust in our schools and educators,” Castillo said Friday.

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Jackson Thompson is a sports writer for Fox News Digital. He previously worked for ESPN and Business Insider. Jackson has covered the Super Bowl and NBA Finals, and has interviewed iconic figures Usain Bolt, Rob Gronkowski, Jerry Rice, Troy Aikman, Mike Trout, David Ortiz and Roger Clemens.

February 14, 2025
GOP lawmakers introduce bill aimed at stopping trafficking of migrant children

Rep. Morgan Luttrell, R-Texas, is joining GOP colleagues in the Senate by introducing legislation to protect unaccompanied migrant children from human traffickers.

“Over 300,000 unaccompanied migrant children effectively disappeared under the Biden administration, leaving them vulnerable to trafficking, abuse, and exploitation. Instead of ensuring their safety, these children are released with no follow-up, falling into the hands of cartels and criminals,” Luttrell said in a release announcing the Stop Human Trafficking of Unaccompanied Migrant Children Act of 2024.

Luttrell’s legislation is a companion to a bill introduced in the Senate by senators Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and aims to prevent further trafficking of migrant children by implementing proper vetting for adults who sponsor a child in the United States, including vetting for parents, immediate relatives and unrelated adults.

MIGRANT SEX TRAFFICKING SURVIVOR SPEAKS OUT: ‘I SAW GOOD PEOPLE DIE’

Rep. Morgan Luttrell, R-Texas, and the U.S. southern border. (Getty Images)

The bill will also require that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) take steps to vet all adults who will live in the home of a migrant child.

“It is terrifying to think that over 300,000 young, innocent children have been brought into this nation, potentially forced into unsafe conditions and at risk for human trafficking,” Scott said in the release. “As a parent or grandparent, it’s unimaginable to think what might happen to these children and that former President Joe Biden allowed this to happen by completely dismantling our immigration system and opening our southern border, completely ignoring the consequences or the tolls on human life.”

Luttrell’s bill seeks to beef up vetting of adults who sponsor a child in the United States to combat cross-border child trafficking. (Fox News)

JUDGE APPROVES EMERGENCY ORDER TO CLOSE MIGRANT GANG-INFESTED AURORA, COLORADO, APARTMENT COMPLEX

The bill aims to put multiple steps in place to prevent trafficking of children, including a prohibition on children being released to a sponsor who is in the U.S. illegally, unless the sponsor is the child’s legal guardian or a relative. The bill will also require authorities to complete a home visit prior to a child being released to the sponsor and calls for at least five additional unannounced home visits during the child’s first year in the country.

The legislation will also require reporting to Congress on actions being taken to account for current missing children, according to the release.

Children play near a section of the U.S.-Mexico border wall in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in May 2021. (Getty Images)

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“HHS must implement thorough vetting to ensure these children are placed with responsible adults — not predators,” Luttrell said. “President Biden’s border policies failed everyone, and this legislation will support the Trump administration’s efforts to course correct the disaster we were left with.”

Michael Lee is a writer for Fox News. Prior to joining Fox News, Michael worked for the Washington Examiner, Bongino.com, and Unbiased America. He has covered politics for more than eight years.

February 11, 2025
Senate Republicans introduce bill to reform birthright citizenship, following Trump’s controversial order

Following President Donald Trump’s controversial day-one executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants, several Senate Republicans have introduced a bill that would reform U.S. law to accomplish exactly that.

Titled the “Birthright Citizenship Act of 2025,” the bill would end the practice of automatically conferring citizenship status on people born in the U.S. of parents who are either illegal aliens or who are in the country legally on a temporary basis. The bill was introduced in the Senate on Jan. 31 by Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Katie Britt of Alabama and Ted Cruz of Texas.

The bill’s sponsors said in a statement that the measure would address what they called “one of the biggest magnets for illegal immigration,” which they believe poses a weakness to national security.

TRUMP ORDER ENDING BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS IS CONSTITUTIONAL, EXPERT SAYS

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., left, joined by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, during a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, May 9, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) estimates there are 33,000 births to tourist women in the U.S. annually. CIS further estimates that there are hundreds of thousands more births to illegal aliens or aliens present on temporary visas.

A 2022 report by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs revealed the existence of several “birth tourism” companies in the U.S., including one called “Miami Mama” that catered to wealthy Russian clients looking to gain legal status in the U.S.

“It is long overdue for the United States to change its policy on birthright citizenship because it is being abused in so many ways,” Graham said in the Friday statement.

He pointed to the practice of birth tourism, which he said was enabling “wealthy individuals from China and other nations to come to the United States simply to have a child who will be an American citizen.”

NEARLY 2 DOZEN STATES SUE TRUMP ADMIN OVER BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP ORDER: ‘UNPRECEDENTED’

A man plays with a child while waiting with other migrants from Venezuela near a bus station after being released from U.S. Border Patrol custody in El Paso, Texas, U.S., September 13, 2022. (REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez)

“When you look at the magnets that draw people to America, birthright citizenship is one of the largest,” said Graham. “I also appreciate President Trump’s executive order to address birthright citizenship. It is time for the United States to align itself with the rest of the world and restrict this practice once and for all.”

Currently, standard practice in the U.S. is to grant automatic citizenship to all children born on U.S. soil. This has been the practice only since the 1960s and is based on what some believe is a flawed interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which reads that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

The Birthright Citizenship Act of 2025 would clarify that to meet the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” clause, a person born in the U.S. must have at least one parent who is a citizen, national, legal permanent resident, or legal alien serving in the U.S. military on active duty.

The law clarifies that it would not affect the citizenship of anyone born before the law’s passage and would only restrict the citizenship of those born in the U.S. after.

22 STATES CHALLENGE TRUMP’S ‘UNCONSTITUTIONAL’ BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP ORDER

US President Donald Trump speaks with US Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott (R) as they participates in a ceremony commemorating the 200th mile of border wall at the international border with Mexico in San Luis, Arizona, June 23, 2020. (SAUL LOEB/AFP )

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This comes after Trump signed an executive order titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship” on his first day in office. The order, which has since been temporarily blocked by a court ruling, directed government agencies to refrain from issuing any documents recognizing the citizenship of any children born in the U.S. to illegal and temporary migrants.

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital that he believes “if this issue gets to the Supreme Court, and it is highly likely that it will, if the court applies the actual text of the amendment and looks at its legislative history — what the sponsors of the bill said at the time — and follows its own precedents in the three cases that looked at this issue, then they will rule in Trump’s favor. This bill would simply clarify what we already know about the amendment and its intent.”

“The most important point here is that this bill is not trying to amend the 14th Amendment,” he said. “It is simply explaining what the terms of the 14th Amendment mean.”

“I think it is important for Congress to reemphasize what it said when it first sponsored and passed the 14th Amendment: that the phrase ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the U.S. would not apply to the child of an alien who is illegally in the U.S. and is, when born, a citizen of the country of the child’s parents, and therefore not subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S.,” he went on. “The current statute, 8 USC 1401, simply repeats the language of the 14th Amendment. It has been totally misinterpreted in recent decades by those who mistakenly say the amendment and the federal law only require birth in the U.S.”

TRUMP ADMIN HITS BACK AS ACLU LAUNCHES LAWSUIT ON BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP: ‘READY TO FACE THEM’

Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Echoing the language used in Trump’s order, Britt said that “the promise of American citizenship should not incentivize illegal migration, but that’s exactly what has happened for far too long.”

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“It’s time to fix this,” said Britt. “Senator Lindsey Graham’s and my Birthright Citizenship Act would codify President Trump’s commonsense stance and end the abuse of birthright citizenship that I do not believe is consistent with the original meaning of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. This will protect our nation’s sovereignty, disincentivize illegal migration, and ensure America’s citizenship practices are stronger and better aligned with peer countries around the globe.”

This comes after House Science and Technology Committee Chairman Brian Babin, R-Texas, introduced a bill on Jan. 21 to similarly clarify that the 14th Amendment does not include children of those who are in the country illegally or on a temporary basis.

Peter Pinedo is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

February 3, 2025