The reason behind President Trump’s executive orders being blocked

As of Feb. 12 President Trump has signed more than 60 executive orders. This is the more than any president has ever signed in their first 100 days in office, in more than 40 years. 

First, let’s start with what executive orders are. Executive orders are directives from the U.S. president that instructs federal agencies to take a specific action. Only the sitting U.S. president has the power to overturn an existing executive order by issuing a new one to that effect. This is because EOs are not legislation, they do not go through Congress for approval, but Congress can pass legislation that may make it difficult, or even impossible, for an EO to go into effect. Courts can also strikedown EOs on the grounds of the president lacking authority to issue them or the EO is unconstitutional.

Currently, several EOs signed by President Trump are being blocked by federal judges. This means that federal judges are either suing the Trump Administration or imposing injunctions on the EOs. Injunctions prohibit a party from ordering or performing a specified act. Injunctions can either be permanent or temporary, but that has yet to be determined for the EOs being blocked.

One major EO that was blocked by federal courts and judges is President Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship. Birthright citizenship has been in place since 1868 when the 14th Amendment was ratified. Originally, the clause was meant for former slaves after the Civil War, but in 1898, it was ruled in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark that birthright citizenship applies to children of immigrants. Looking directly at this clause in the Constitution is a dead give away that this EO was unconstitutional. This fact shows in the 10 lawsuits that the Trump Administration are facing, seven of which challenge the EO directly.

According to Mattathias Schwartz and Seamus Hughes of the New York Times, “The plaintiffs seeking to defend the 14th Amendment’s longstanding guarantee to birthright citizenship include two groups of state attorney generals, nonprofits representing pregnant mothers and an attorney from Orange County, Calif., who is representing his pregnant wife.”

The judges that have been hearing these current cases are skeptical of the president’s order and have imposed two preliminary injunctions that have put the EO on hold, for now. 

Other challenges the Trump Administration is dealing with are cities in Calif., including San Francisco, have sued the administration for an EO that would withhold federal funds from cities that do not enforce President Trump’s new immigration policies.

President Trump’s EOs range in several topics. From immigration to federal funds, the president seems to think our current policies are not fit. Another EO President Trump signed on his first day in office targets transgender women in the prison system and instructs transgender women to be rehoused to men’s facilities. It also prohibits the Bureau of Prisons from providing gender-affirming care to inmates. This EO was blocked by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, and was not only blocked by a federal judge, but three transgender women currently housed in women’s prison facilities sued over the order. They claimed the EO was representing sex-based discrimination and violates the protection from cruel and unusual punishment that they are ensured, as inmates. 

The three women’s attorney, Jennifer Levi, told the judge, “given the serious risk of violence and sexual assault,” they will face in men’s facilities, it is inhumane to rehouse them. The judge ruled in favor of the inmates based on this argument and others.

The Trump Administration’s anti-transgender policies are abundant, but most don’t differentiate between if these policies are truly needed or if they are just discriminatory and promote violence, as well as discrimination.

While there are several other EOs being blocked by federal judges, these are examples of a few of President Trump’s EOs, how EOs are blocked by federal judges and how other EOs, like these, may be blocked as well. 

Although there is still a chance that these EOs will go through, there is an equal chance that they will be injunctioned permanently, the suits will win or the EOs will be found to be unconstitutional in federal court.