Never mind......
Paraphrasing St Augustine——”Without a system of justice, what is the state but a marauding band of thieves.”
The ex post facto stricture in the US constitution applies to federal laws. Does the California constitution even have one?
Notice that a court acted and the executive branch responded in one of the ways that it can.
Absent clarification by the court the executive moved out smartly as if the law had never existed.
This happens every day, and if you don't like it you go back to court for a clarification.
Now, apply this to the administrative (that is, executive branch) decisions regarding birthright citizenship. So far we don't have any court decisions on the matter ~ just a couple regarding peripheral issues, but nothing straight to the gut on ILLEGAL ENTRANTS. The one case frequently cited involved LEGAL IMMIGRANTS!
Not too far in the past if a foreign visitor had a baby in the USA she was REQUIRED to add the baby to her visa! BINGO ~ the State Department rules clearly did not treat the babies of foreigners just visiting in the same manner as the babies of immigrants with a legal right to be here. In fact, worse than that, the state department was directing that American born children be added to visas just as if they were foreigners!!!
Somewhere the administrative rules got revised ~ actually not too long ago when they eliminated FAMILY VISAS.
All those illegal alien babies born here could end up without citizenship if this issue were ever actually brought to court.
If California's administrators were correct ~ that with no supporting statute the previous administrative exceptions were invalid and can be dealt with retroactively, then the illegal alien babies are not American citizens. All the principles are the same.
Note, I was actually involved in some of the same sort of questions at USPS when it came to application of postage and fees to actions taken in the past. Basically, our argument ran, if the clerk overlooked a rule, or an obscure combination of rules, that we, the world's foremost experts in postal regulations could easily see, our findings prevailed ALL THE WAY BACK and the customer owed the money.
In a case at law before a court things might have been different, but for the executive there's little other choice but to take the money!~