The courts are the last defenses against Donald Trump’s executive orders

Published on January 23, 2025 at 8:48 p.m. / Modified on January 24, 2025 at 06:11.

3 mins. reading

It was a major promise of his campaign: to close the border with Mexico and carry out mass expulsions of illegal immigrants. Since his swearing in on Monday, Donald Trump has been moving forward on this front, with a barrage of executive orders. Immigration is the first target of this assertion of executive power. In one of his latest decisions, the president suspended the entry of refugees into the United States on Wednesday. This measure, for example, had immediate consequences for thousands of Afghans whose asylum request had already been accepted. Some of them had collaborated with American forces before their withdrawal from the country in 2021 and they are threatened by the Taliban.

The most contested measure is the repeal of the soil law, which allows children born in the territory of the United States to acquire American nationality. This principle is anchored in the Constitution. In its executive order, the Trump administration claims that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, designed to grant citizenship to African Americans after the abolition of slavery, should not benefit children born to illegal immigrants because, being illegal, they do not depend on the jurisdiction of the United States. Twenty-two states led by Democrats have appealed against this decree, which must come into force within a month. On Thursday, a federal judge in Seattle decided to temporarily block this “clearly unconstitutional” executive order.

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