President Donald Trump said he will be "signing other things...

President Donald Trump said he will be "signing other things that you're going to love." Credit: Getty Images via TNS / Anna Moneymaker

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump spent his first week back in office rapidly signing executive orders, the sheer volume of which could work to his advantage as he looks to quickly implement his second-term agenda against a wave of new lawsuits, legal analysts told Newsday.

At least 10 lawsuits have been filed in federal court over the past week looking to stop Trump from enacting some of his orders, including those banning birthright citizenship, weakening protections for federal employees and creating a "Department of Government Efficiency" run by billionaire ally Elon Musk.

Democratic state attorneys general and legal advocacy groups have said more lawsuits are on the way as they push back against Trump’s directives. But unlike his first term when he was a Washington novice surrounded by a revolving door of competing advisers, this term he is surrounded by longtime loyalists, who have been publicly anticipating the legal battles to come.

"I think the strategy here is to flood the zone with orders and actions, knowing that it will be difficult, if not impossible, for opponents of his policies to stop them all," said James Sample, a constitutional law professor at Hofstra Law School.

Trump, who signed one executive order on the first day of his first term, returned to the Oval Office last week and signed more than 50 orders within a few days, according to the White House. The orders cover an array of policy pledges from his campaign including pardoning his supporters charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, opening federally protected lands in Alaska to oil drilling, and curtailing diversity, equity and inclusion programs aimed at addressing discrimination in the workplace.

"We're not finished yet. We’ve got a long way to go," Trump told an animated crowd of supporters as he prepared to sign a series of leather-bound executive orders at an inauguration rally at Capital One Arena in Washington on Monday. "I'm signing other things that you're going to love."

Michael Dorf, a Cornell University constitutional law professor, told Newsday the deluge of executive orders "makes it harder for his opposition to coordinate around any particular one."

Dorf said the volume of "envelope-pushing" orders makes it so that "even if the opposition is able to pick off a few of them ... a lot of the rest gets implemented." 

Trump and his returning advisers, including his senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, an immigration hard-liner, have experience from his first term in how lawsuits can delay or outright block his mandates.

During Trump’s first term, his administration faced at least 246 lawsuits challenging his agenda, and won less than a quarter of those cases — 54 cases in all — according to a study by the New York University School of Law Institute for Policy Integrity that reviewed lawsuits filed against the first Trump administration between 2017 and 2021.

Trump’s first-term legal defeats included the Supreme Court's overturning his 2017 directive that sought to end an Obama-era program providing temporary legal status to young immigrants — so-called "Dreamers" — who arrived in the United States as minors. The court also blocked his attempt to include citizenship status as a question on the 2020 Census.

Lawsuits against Trump’s 2017 travel ban, which initially barred entry into the United States from a list of Muslim-majority countries, led to a 10-month delay in implementing the ban, as Trump’s team revised the ban twice to counter the legal challenges. The Supreme Court ultimately upheld the ban's third version in 2018.

President Joe Biden signed an executive order on his first day in office eliminating the ban, but Trump on Monday signed an order calling on Homeland Security officials to return in 60 days with a list of "countries throughout the world" they recommend for a potential "suspension" of travelers.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee told Reuters it is weighing a potential legal challenge should the ban be reinstated.

On Thursday, a federal district judge in Washington state temporarily blocked the Trump administration from implementing an order aimed at eliminating automatic citizenship for children born in the United States whose parents are in the country illegally.

U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, who was appointed to the bench by the late Republican President Ronald Reagan, called the order "blatantly unconstitutional," according to The Associated Press.

Five separate lawsuits — several filed by a total of 22 Democratic state attorneys general including New York Attorney General Letitia James — are looking to invalidate the order, which they argue violates the 14th Amendment.

Hofstra's Sample said the 14th Amendment is "crystal clear" in granting citizenship to "all persons born" in the United States, adding that Trump is likely using the order as a messaging tool, as he promises to crack down on illegal immigration.

"This has been the law of the land for more than 100 years," Sample said. "So it’s not clear to me that Trump and his MAGA allies think they can win this flight. But the mere fact that they have the audacity to pursue this fight will scare real people."

Three separate federal lawsuits were filed on Inauguration Day seeking to block a Trump order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency or "DOGE," a Musk-led effort to cut government spending.

The lawsuits, filed by government watchdog groups including Democracy Forward, Public Citizen and National Security Counselors, argue the agency should meet the requirements of other federal advisory boards that require public meetings with publicly available minutes.

"The 'Department' of Government Efficiency is not a federal department," states the lawsuit from Democracy Forward. "Elected representatives in Congress have not established nor have they funded such an enterprise. DOGE is, instead, a shadow operation led by unelected billionaires who stand to reap huge financial rewards from this influence and access."

On Trump’s second day in office, a federal employee union — the National Treasury Employees Union — filed a suit seeking to undo a Trump order that creates a new class of federal employees, arguing that this will jeopardize protections for long-serving employees.

Trump’s order creates a "Schedule F" category that would allow his administration to freely hire and fire political appointees in policymaking jobs. The union argues that Trump’s order bypasses long-standing federal rules enacted by Congress that "established that most federal employees have due process rights if their agency employer wants to remove them from employment."

Trump in his order asserts that "accountability is sorely lacking today" and federal employees "must be accountable to the President."

On Trump’s third day in office, the New York Civil Liberties Union and American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit looking to invalidate a Trump order that gives immigration enforcement agencies the ability to fast-track deportations without having immigrants appear before an immigration judge.

The lawsuit filed on behalf of the immigrant-advocacy group Make the Road New York argues that Trump’s order violates "the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause, the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Administrative Procedure Act."

Christopher Malone, a political science professor at Farmingdale State College, said that while advocacy groups appear prepared to challenge Trump’s orders much as they did his first term, this time they’re confronting a Trump team that is more organized and resourced to push back.

"He has really brought together people who know what they're doing on a much grander scale than four to eight years ago," Malone said. "It's shock and awe, if you will, on the legal front."

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump spent his first week back in office rapidly signing executive orders, the sheer volume of which could work to his advantage as he looks to quickly implement his second-term agenda against a wave of new lawsuits, legal analysts told Newsday.

At least 10 lawsuits have been filed in federal court over the past week looking to stop Trump from enacting some of his orders, including those banning birthright citizenship, weakening protections for federal employees and creating a "Department of Government Efficiency" run by billionaire ally Elon Musk.

Democratic state attorneys general and legal advocacy groups have said more lawsuits are on the way as they push back against Trump’s directives. But unlike his first term when he was a Washington novice surrounded by a revolving door of competing advisers, this term he is surrounded by longtime loyalists, who have been publicly anticipating the legal battles to come.

"I think the strategy here is to flood the zone with orders and actions, knowing that it will be difficult, if not impossible, for opponents of his policies to stop them all," said James Sample, a constitutional law professor at Hofstra Law School.

WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND

  • At least 10 lawsuits have been filed looking to stop President Donald Trump from enacting some of his executive orders, including those banning birthright citizenship, weakening protections for federal employees and creating a "Department of Government Efficiency."
  • Legal analysts said the sheer volume of orders Trump is signing could work to his advantage as he looks to quickly implement his second-term agenda against the wave of new lawsuits. 
  • Democratic state attorneys general and legal advocacy groups have said more lawsuits are on the way as they push back against Trump’s directives.

Trump, who signed one executive order on the first day of his first term, returned to the Oval Office last week and signed more than 50 orders within a few days, according to the White House. The orders cover an array of policy pledges from his campaign including pardoning his supporters charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, opening federally protected lands in Alaska to oil drilling, and curtailing diversity, equity and inclusion programs aimed at addressing discrimination in the workplace.

"We're not finished yet. We’ve got a long way to go," Trump told an animated crowd of supporters as he prepared to sign a series of leather-bound executive orders at an inauguration rally at Capital One Arena in Washington on Monday. "I'm signing other things that you're going to love."

Michael Dorf, a Cornell University constitutional law professor, told Newsday the deluge of executive orders "makes it harder for his opposition to coordinate around any particular one."

Dorf said the volume of "envelope-pushing" orders makes it so that "even if the opposition is able to pick off a few of them ... a lot of the rest gets implemented." 

Experience with challenges

Trump and his returning advisers, including his senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, an immigration hard-liner, have experience from his first term in how lawsuits can delay or outright block his mandates.

During Trump’s first term, his administration faced at least 246 lawsuits challenging his agenda, and won less than a quarter of those cases — 54 cases in all — according to a study by the New York University School of Law Institute for Policy Integrity that reviewed lawsuits filed against the first Trump administration between 2017 and 2021.

Trump’s first-term legal defeats included the Supreme Court's overturning his 2017 directive that sought to end an Obama-era program providing temporary legal status to young immigrants — so-called "Dreamers" — who arrived in the United States as minors. The court also blocked his attempt to include citizenship status as a question on the 2020 Census.

Lawsuits against Trump’s 2017 travel ban, which initially barred entry into the United States from a list of Muslim-majority countries, led to a 10-month delay in implementing the ban, as Trump’s team revised the ban twice to counter the legal challenges. The Supreme Court ultimately upheld the ban's third version in 2018.

President Joe Biden signed an executive order on his first day in office eliminating the ban, but Trump on Monday signed an order calling on Homeland Security officials to return in 60 days with a list of "countries throughout the world" they recommend for a potential "suspension" of travelers.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee told Reuters it is weighing a potential legal challenge should the ban be reinstated.

No automatic citizenship?

On Thursday, a federal district judge in Washington state temporarily blocked the Trump administration from implementing an order aimed at eliminating automatic citizenship for children born in the United States whose parents are in the country illegally.

U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, who was appointed to the bench by the late Republican President Ronald Reagan, called the order "blatantly unconstitutional," according to The Associated Press.

Five separate lawsuits — several filed by a total of 22 Democratic state attorneys general including New York Attorney General Letitia James — are looking to invalidate the order, which they argue violates the 14th Amendment.

Hofstra's Sample said the 14th Amendment is "crystal clear" in granting citizenship to "all persons born" in the United States, adding that Trump is likely using the order as a messaging tool, as he promises to crack down on illegal immigration.

"This has been the law of the land for more than 100 years," Sample said. "So it’s not clear to me that Trump and his MAGA allies think they can win this flight. But the mere fact that they have the audacity to pursue this fight will scare real people."

Creating a new department

Three separate federal lawsuits were filed on Inauguration Day seeking to block a Trump order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency or "DOGE," a Musk-led effort to cut government spending.

The lawsuits, filed by government watchdog groups including Democracy Forward, Public Citizen and National Security Counselors, argue the agency should meet the requirements of other federal advisory boards that require public meetings with publicly available minutes.

"The 'Department' of Government Efficiency is not a federal department," states the lawsuit from Democracy Forward. "Elected representatives in Congress have not established nor have they funded such an enterprise. DOGE is, instead, a shadow operation led by unelected billionaires who stand to reap huge financial rewards from this influence and access."

On Trump’s second day in office, a federal employee union — the National Treasury Employees Union — filed a suit seeking to undo a Trump order that creates a new class of federal employees, arguing that this will jeopardize protections for long-serving employees.

Trump’s order creates a "Schedule F" category that would allow his administration to freely hire and fire political appointees in policymaking jobs. The union argues that Trump’s order bypasses long-standing federal rules enacted by Congress that "established that most federal employees have due process rights if their agency employer wants to remove them from employment."

Trump in his order asserts that "accountability is sorely lacking today" and federal employees "must be accountable to the President."

Action on deportations

On Trump’s third day in office, the New York Civil Liberties Union and American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit looking to invalidate a Trump order that gives immigration enforcement agencies the ability to fast-track deportations without having immigrants appear before an immigration judge.

The lawsuit filed on behalf of the immigrant-advocacy group Make the Road New York argues that Trump’s order violates "the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause, the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Administrative Procedure Act."

Christopher Malone, a political science professor at Farmingdale State College, said that while advocacy groups appear prepared to challenge Trump’s orders much as they did his first term, this time they’re confronting a Trump team that is more organized and resourced to push back.

"He has really brought together people who know what they're doing on a much grander scale than four to eight years ago," Malone said. "It's shock and awe, if you will, on the legal front."

From Love Lane in Mattituck, NewsdayTV's Elisa DiStefano and Newsday deputy lifestyle editor Meghan Giannotta have your look at ways to celebrate Valentine's Day this year. Credit: Randee Daddona, Gary Licker; Newsday / A.J. Singh

Put a little love in your heart with the NewsdayTV Valentine's Day Special! From Love Lane in Mattituck, NewsdayTV's Elisa DiStefano and Newsday deputy lifestyle editor Meghan Giannotta have your look at ways to celebrate Valentine's Day this year.

From Love Lane in Mattituck, NewsdayTV's Elisa DiStefano and Newsday deputy lifestyle editor Meghan Giannotta have your look at ways to celebrate Valentine's Day this year. Credit: Randee Daddona, Gary Licker; Newsday / A.J. Singh

Put a little love in your heart with the NewsdayTV Valentine's Day Special! From Love Lane in Mattituck, NewsdayTV's Elisa DiStefano and Newsday deputy lifestyle editor Meghan Giannotta have your look at ways to celebrate Valentine's Day this year.

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