Donald Trump will issue a raft of executive orders aimed at re-shaping how the United States deals with citizenship and immigration, an incoming administration official told reporters on Monday, January 20.
The 47th president will set to work almost immediately after he is sworn in Monday, with a series of presidential decrees intended to drastically reduce the number of migrants entering the country. "We are going to declare a national emergency at the border," said incoming White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly. "The Executive Order directs the military to prioritize our borders and territorial integrity."
Trump also plans to put an end to the centuries-old practice of granting citizenship automatically to anyone born in the United States. "We're going to end asylum," the official said, and create) an immediate removal process without possibility of asylum. We are then going to end birthright citizenship," Kelly said.
The notion of birthright citizenship is enshrined in the US Constitution, which grants anyone born on US soil the right to an American passport. Kelly said the actions Trump takes would "clarify" the 14th Amendment – the clause that addresses birthright citizenship. "Federal government will not recognize automatic birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens born in the United States," she said.
Executive Orders are signed statements about how the president wants the federal government to be managed. They can be instructions to federal agencies or requests for reports. Many orders can be unobjectionable, such as giving federal employees the day after Christmas off. They can also lay out major policies. But executive orders also are used by presidents to pursue agendas they can't get through Congress.
New presidents can – and often do – issue orders to cancel the orders of their predecessors.
Trump will also target diversity programs and gender identity in the United States, the official added, claiming the soon-to-be US president will move swiftly to deliver on divisive campaign promises to dismantle "woke" culture.
Kelly said Trump will order the US government to recognize only two biological sexes as well as to end federal diversity programs. The policies will almost certainly face legal challenges. "What we're doing today is defining that it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes: Male and female," Kelly said. "The Department of Treasury – this is a little while ago now – included diversity training that said all white people, regardless of how woke they are, contribute to racism. So this type of funding, we're going to end at these (diversity) programs. We're going to end that."
On the campaign trail, Trump railed against diversity, equity and inclusion policies in the federal government and in the corporate world, saying they discriminated against white people – men in particular.