The United States woke up this Tuesday with a hangover after a long day of events, announcements, and celebrations in the capital. Donald Trump is back, with more power than ever, a lot of strength, and few restraints. The opposition is weakened, with the Congress in Republican hands, and, as happened in 2016, there is a sweeping wave of conservative, Trumpist, and radical energy. People, groups, collectives, and ideas that feel vindicated and want to make the most of their moment.
The main obstacle, in the coming weeks, will not come directly from politics. The battleground is once again in the courts. The new president signed a flurry of executive orders in his first hours in the White House, with specific proposals or simply overturning up to 78 initiatives of his predecessor, Joe Biden. And with that, a measured battle before the judges also began.
He declared, among other things, a national emergency at the southern border, a mass pardon for over 1,500 convicted for the Capitol assault, who are already leaving prisons embraced by their families, allies, and even congressmen. The exit from the Paris Climate Agreement or the World Health Organization. The lock on diversity programs or funds for gender policies. In addition to an extension for TikTok to find a solution and adapt to the new US legislation.
This Tuesday, 22 states and several civil rights associations have already filed the first round of complaints to halt orders such as those that seek to deprive US-born individuals of rights, even if born to parents without legal status or papers. Or those aiming to dismantle what is known as 'sanctuary cities', threatening with massive raids by immigration services in Chicago, for example.
The attorneys general of those 22 states went to a Massachusetts court to block the executive order urging not to recognize as citizens the children of unauthorized immigrants born in the United States, and even those who are, albeit temporarily with study permits. Something illegal, "extraordinary and extreme," in the words of New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin, who leads the legal battle along with his colleagues from California and Massachusetts. "Presidents are powerful, but he is not a king. He cannot rewrite the Constitution with a stroke of the pen," they say in their filing.
Trump's executive order states that these children would not be "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States and, therefore, are not covered by the guarantee provided by the Fourteenth Amendment, going against over a century of jurisprudence. During all this time, the courts have only recognized one exception: the children of diplomats. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Lawyers for Civil Rights filed complaints in two states on behalf of parents whose children would not be eligible for citizenship.
But the fight will now be fierce. There are federal judges, and the legal teams of Republican governors in border states, who believe that Trump is right and the country is in a unique situation, not at war but subjected to some kind of "invasion." In fact, this is why Trump has been obsessed for months with invoking the 1798 Law that precisely regulates foreign invasions.
In any case, the general interpretation is that these first days are above all a show of strength, both internally and externally. A release, a statement of principles. But then, the important steps must be articulated following the usual channels. You can take a stand from the Oval Office, but you cannot govern the US through decrees. Perhaps the best example is the executive order that Barack Obama signed in 2009 ordering the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, which 15 years later is still operational with prisoners.
Why? The typical stance of the Supreme Court when it has had to rule has established that the Executive cannot unilaterally resolve "important issues", nor can it shield itself in exceptional situations or try to solve all problems with national emergencies. That is why this Tuesday the president will meet with the Republican leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives to prepare the legislative ground before making an announcement of massive private sector investments in AI, with up to half a trillion dollars.
In a lawsuit obtained by The Washington Post, the public interest law firm National Security Counselors argues that DOGE, the strange organization led by Elon Musk to reduce the size of the State and save up to two trillion dollars, violates rules in place for 50 years, such as the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires executive branch advisory committees to follow specific rules on disclosure, hiring, conflicts of interest, and other practices.
But one thing is the law and another its spirit. One thing is the checks and balances of the system, and another the strength of leadership. The message for many, in the US and abroad, is that now there is a blank check or at least much more leeway. Radical groups like the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers think so, whose leaders, sentenced to up to 22 years in prison, were released on Monday after Trump signed pardons and commutations for those who stormed the Capitol.
Congressmen like Republican Andy Ogles from Tennessee think so, who not only introduced a bill for the US to buy Greenland but also openly stated on television that the island should belong to the US because national interests are at stake in that area, and the world's leading military power is "the dominant predator."
Certainly, the Jewish settler groups, freed from sanctions imposed by Joe Biden, immediately rushed to attack Palestinian villages in the West Bank with the complicity of the Israeli Army. And former high-ranking officials like John Bolton, who served as Trump's national security advisor, ended up being one of his main detractors, and whom the president hates so much that he ordered, just yesterday, to remove his Secret Service protection, despite death threats from Iran and the detention of hitmen ready to execute them in 2022.
The US is undergoing a national, nationalist turn, and it remains to be seen if it is expansionist, with threats to Panama, Canada, Mexico, or Greenland, for example. Trump has arrived like a steamroller, and many, from the world's top billionaires to historically sensitive associations (like the Anti-Defamation League, which has urged taking a deep breath and not taking Elon Musk's controversial Roman-style raised arm gesture at Monday's celebration literally), are afraid or have little will and intention to oppose.
In the morning, President Trump and Vice President J.D Vance, recently converted to Catholicism, were in the front row for a morning service at the National Cathedral officiated by Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde. In her message, the leader of the Episcopal diocese of the capital reminded them that unity requires "honesty, humility, and honoring the dignity" of all human beings and opposing "mockery or demonizing" others.
In her conclusion, perhaps with the most direct plea to date, Budde went even further, pleading with the new administration to "have mercy on the people of our country who are now scared", specifically mentioning the LGBTQ community, immigrants, and refugees. "I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President," because "we were all once foreigners in this land".