'Press releases with nicer stationery': Experts debate Trump executive orders' legality

The Washington Post announced that President Donald Trump will approve nearly 100 executive orders, but according to legal analysts, that doesn't mean that they will become law.

New York City business lawyer Ray Beckerman responded to reports that Trump will no longer recognize the citizenship of children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants by writing, "Uh, that would be unconstitutional."

It is an order that is likely to end up at the U.S. Supreme Court, and Slate legal writer Mark Joseph Stern said it would be hard to argued that the order doesn't violate the Constitution's 14th Amendment.

"I do not hold this Supreme Court in high esteem, but I feel very confident that it will not allow Trump to 'end' birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants—by executive order, legislation, or any other means short of a constitutional amendment," said Slate legal writer Mark Joseph Stern.

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"The original meaning of the 14th Amendment is extraordinarily clear in its grant of birthright citizenship to virtually all people born in the U.S. The Supreme Court settled this issue in 1898. Today’s SCOTUS is very conservative, but not so insane as to unwind this fundamental guarantee IMO," he added.

One anti-transgender executive order bans all funding to programs that even acknowledge and affirm transgender people's existence. In response, Georgia law school professor Anthony Michael Kreis said, "The executive branch cannot create funding conditions not blessed by Congress. Depending on what the EO looks like, courts would have to agree with an interpretation of Title IX that affirming trans people is inherently a form of sex discrimination. This is absolute insanity. Pure sex stereotyping."

Legal analyst Max Kennerly similarly agreed with the assessment on that order, "This is facially discriminatory with no rational connection to a legitimate purpose, so legally this EO stands on the same footing as "federal funds will be withheld from any program that acknowledges Catholics." But with our federal courts... Take a bow, NYTImes & The Atlantic, you did this."

Lawfare's managing editor Tyler McBrien said of the proposed executive orders , "As we brace for the flurry of Trump admin EOs this afternoon, it's good to keep in mind that, in the wise words of @alanrozenshtein.com, executive orders 'are not magical documents. They’re just press releases with nicer stationery.'"