WASHINGTON — The new Trump administration today will issue 10 executive orders, including an end to future birthright citizenship for children of immigrants without legal status, allowing the use of the military on the southern border and designating foreign drug cartels “global terrorists.”
Trump does not have sole power to end birthright citizenship, so it’s not clear how the change can be made without it facing legal challenges, since the right is provided in the 14th Amendment.
In a briefing Monday morning previewing the actions Trump will sign after being inaugurated, an incoming Trump official said the orders will call for:
- Declaring a national emergency at the border. The Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security will be ordered to finish the wall at the U.S.–Mexico border. U.S. armed forces and National Guard personnel will be deployed at the border.
- Giving the military more power to “protect the territorial integrity of the United States” and seal the borders to “maintain sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of the U.S.”
- Ending catch-and-release, a reference to the practice of releasing a migrant to the community while they await hearings in immigration court, as an alternative to detaining them. The administration will also develop federal and state partnerships to enforce immigration policies and priorities.”
- Designating criminal cartels and others as global terrorists.
- Suspending refugee resettlement for at least four months.
- Ordering the federal government to not “recognize automatic birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to parents without legal status. Trump will also order enhanced vetting and immigrants without legal status.
- Equipping agents and officers of ICE and border patrol with authority to deport immigrants without legal status, and establishing Department of Homeland Security task forces to “cooperate with state and local law enforcement in the removal of gangs, criminals” and immigrants without legal status from the U.S.”
- Directing the U.S. Attorney General to seek the death penalty for the murder of law enforcement officers and capital crimes committed by immigrants without legal status. The administration will also encourage state agencies and district attorneys to bring, on a state level, capital charges for these crimes.
Trump inauguration 2025
After years of warm relations with the Biden White House, a new, grim reality sets in for Illinois when Trump is inaugurated at noon ET on Monday.
Chicago and suburban voters share their thoughts on the incoming administration from “cautiously optimistic” to anxiety and concern. “Is he going to be more divisive as a president?”
Mayor Brandon Johnson says he is hoping to get a meeting with Trump, whose hostility to Chicago dates back to his first run for president.
Trump’s swearing-in lands on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the national holiday celebrating the civil rights icon always held on the third Monday in January.