Trump’s executive orders
The sheer numbers and scope of the executive orders Trump has issued are overwhelming. The Trump team has apparently been preparing this for a long time, a sort of executive order wishlist that they now get to fulfill. I’ve only scratched the surface of what appear so far to be the most important of the orders.
Birthright citizenship I dealt with in some depth in this recent post. It was always understood that there would be legal challenges and that it’s possible those challenges will succeed. I actually think they will succeed, not because the law can’t be changed, but because the proper mechanism for the change of an amendment is another amendment. I happen to think Trump’s position on birthright citizenship makes sense and I would support it; it’s just that an EO can’t do that, IMHO.
So to me it’s no surprise whatsoever that this has happened – the first round in the battle:
A federal judge in Seattle blocked, temporarily, President Donald Trump’s attempt to rescind birthright citizenship — the idea spelled out in the Constitution that every person born in the United States is an American citizen.
Senior U.S. District Judge John Coughenour on Thursday was blistering in his criticism of Trump’s action as he granted a temporary restraining order that blocks Trump’s executive order from taking effect nationwide. …
The executive order will remain blocked for at least 14 days while lawsuits in Washington and elsewhere proceed. Washington will next seek a preliminary injunction from Coughenour, which would continue to block the executive order as cases move along.
I assume the issue will probably go to SCOTUS.
Here are some of Trump’s other EOs, this time having to do with the Middle East:
US President Donald Trump revoked a host of what he called “harmful” executive orders and actions under former President Joe Biden that included the sanctioning of Jews living in the West Bank accused of undermining peace and security.
He also halted funding to Unrwa, the agency which distributes aid in Gaza but which Israel has repeatedly accused of employing staff with close links to terror group Hamas. The UN has admitted that nine of the agency’s staff may been involved in the October 7 attack on Israel.
Caroline Glick has done major work on how awful the sanctions on these “settlers” have been; see this, for example.
And Trump states the glaringly obvious and designates the Houthis as a terrorist group again:
In an executive order signed on Wednesday, Trump said that the terrorist group “threaten[s] the security of American civilians and personnel in the Middle East, the safety of our closest regional partners, and the stability of global maritime trade.”
“Supported by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGC-QF), which arms and trains terrorist organizations worldwide, the Houthis have fired at U.S. Navy warships dozens of times since 2023, endangering American men and women in uniform,” the order noted.
“I assume the issue will probably go to SCOTUS.”
I hope it does and I think that may be part of the plan. I’m also seeing a lot of garment rending from certain sectors over the quantity of the EOs – as if it wasn’t decades of executive overreach that got us here.
Also, Trump needs to declare that pantifa A) exists and B) is terrorist group. Nobody who would balk at that has opinions I give a rat’s ass about.
What strikes me is that these orders didn’t leak before inauguration day, despite the obvious large-scale assistance of lawyers and advisors in writing them.
It’s possible the automatic birthright citizen ban for temporary residents or illegal alien parents may stand. I’m sure the administration knew this would go to the Supreme Court.
Trump Tally update – looks like more sissy sanctions and lots of talk about Iran:
Trump’s EO on birthright citizenship was a deliberate provocation IMO, to get the issue out into the public domain so it can be debated.
Most people simply assume that every country does this, when in fact the USA is almost alone in this regard. If the hicks and hayseeds and yahoos found out about this, why, they might question why WE do it when almost no other country does. Can’t have that now, can we?
Birthright citizenship is a dumb idea, especially when it’s combined with very high levels of legal immigration, high levels of illegal immigration, refugee resettlement, and student visas. There are at minimum 3 million people arriving here, year in year out, and too many of them feel no pressure to assimilate.
Maybe what Trump is angling for is for some kind of deal to be made: birthright citizenship stays, but only if it’s accompanied by a genuine crackdown on illegal immigration, birth tourism, the refugee resettlement racket, the diversity lottery, and chain migration. Maybe Trump tells Schumer that he’d better think long and hard about a deal like that, because with 2/3 of the public in support of deportations for illegals, public opinion on birthright citizenship is also likely to shift in a direction Schumer does not like.
I predict that the birthright citizenship EO will not go to SCOTUS. The law is actually pretty clear that this change can’t be made by EO. They’ll appeal to the 9th circuit, and lose. After that, there’s not much reason for SCOTUS to grant cert. because the 9th Circuit’s decision won’t be wrong.
If Trump would really like to end birthright citizenship, he should get behind a Constitutional amendment and recognize that he’s in for a long slog.
A factual and compelling case for why the Supreme Court should issue a definitive ruling in support of President Trump’s EO on Birthright Citizenship.
“Birthright Citizenship: Game On!”
https://americanmind.org/salvo/birthright-citizenship-game-on/
Bauxite:
He started the ball rolling this way. He’s well aware he might lose in court. Then he almost certainly will change his approach.
Trump has set a new land-speed record for the first few days of a presidency!
Almost certainly better than he would have done, had he won in 2020.
Of course, we’ve now got a deeper hole to dig out of. But we’ve got a solid shot at another two terms with Vance or someone else, which I doubt would have been possible if Trump’s terms had been consecutive.
Nonetheless, Biden’s term was scary. If Biden hadn’t tried to run again and thus been couped, Democrats could well have won after a regular primary and a candidate better than Harris.
It reads like a chapter out of the Old Testament, of a people losing their way, being tested, then finding their back again.
At any rate the 14th Amendment was not understood at the time to require birthright citizenship, because later statutes added Native Americans to those born American citizens, and they didn’t need a Constitutional amendment to enact those statutes, and there would have been no need for those statutes if the 14th Amendment had been understood to say that everyone born in America is a citizen.
And American Samoans are excluded from American citizenship at birth as well, which was done by statute. And when some of them sued, the courts ruled in 2015 and 2019 that the 14th Amendment does not cover them.
Trump should issue an EO to defund the UN and, further, to evict the UN from Turtle Bay.
I don’t think Trump expects that all his executive orders are going to hold up. I think they are intended to say “I am fighting for you”, and the people opposing the implementation of those orders are self-identifying as people who are fighting against us.
The repeal of LBJ’s affirmative action order is thought-provoking. There have been five other Republican Presidents since then, and not one of them, not even St Reagan, repealed that order, though it was in their power to do so. By doing so, Trump is sending the message, “I am doing this when all the others said it could not be done, or promised to and didn’t do it.”
Even his pardons aren’t all “working”–at least one judge in DC has decided she can disregard them because she doesn’t agree with them. And people like this are self-identifying.
The DC judges haven’t said they can disregard the pardons. What they are doing, however, is to dismiss charges, as ordered by the president, but without prejudice, leaving open the possibility of charges being re-filed in some distant future when a vindictive Democrat occupies the White House.
Trump should issue an EO to defund the UN and, further, to evict the UN from Turtle Bay.
IrishOtter49:
Likewise. Baby steps first.
Geoffrey Britain on January 23, 2025 at 5:27 pm
My quick look at Geoffrey’s article suggests that a big part of the problem is that the important case Wong Kim Ark was incorrectly decided. So in theory, if true, we don’t need a new constitutional amendment.
In a way, it’s the Overton Window again, but on a court level.
@Tommy Jay: The argument against birthright citizenship does not hinge on overturning one decision. It based as well on things that happened before and after.
The New York Times today listed these ten Day 1 Trump initiatives: Click on the links for details
Withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, the pact among almost all nations to fight climate change.
Declare a national energy emergency, a first in U.S. history, which could unlock new powers to suspend certain environmental rules or expedite permitting of certain mining projects.
Attempt to reverse Mr. Biden’s ban on offshore drilling for 625 million acres of federal waters.
Begin the repeal of Biden-era regulations on tailpipe pollution from cars and light trucks, which have encouraged automakers to manufacture more electric vehicles.
Roll back energy-efficiency regulations for dishwashers, shower heads and gas stoves.
Open the Alaska wilderness to more oil and gas drilling.
Restart reviews of new export terminals for liquefied natural gas, something the Biden administration had paused.
Halt the leasing of federal waters for offshore wind farms.
Eliminate environmental justice programs across the government, which are aimed at protecting poor communities from excess pollution.
Review all federal regulations that impose an “undue burden” on the development or use of a variety of energy sources, particularly coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear power, hydropower and biofuels.