In President Donald Trump’s inaugural speech he outlined some of the executive orders he plans to sign, including a crackdown on illegal immigration, a promise to eliminate certain diversity and gender policies, a declaration of a national energy emergency and more.
To put some of Trump’s promises into context and understand how that impacts Minnesota, Kathryn Pearson, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota, joined the program.
The following has been edited for length and clarity. Check the transcript at the bottom or click on the audio player above for the full conversation.
The power of executive orders
“Every president issues executive orders or executive actions, in some cases, that direct the federal government to do something. But many of them are challenged in court because, in our system of separated powers, it is Congress’ job to legislate and make important decisions,” Pearson said.
”So for example, in President Trump’s first term, a series of federal court battles blocked him from redirecting funds toward building a border wall under a national emergency declaration. And so, even as he is declaring a national emergency at the border today, it’s sort of unclear where that will take us in court.”
Emergency at the southern border
“It’s actually unclear what emergency the Trump administration is responding to, as border crossings in 2024 have declined significantly compared to their record highs in 2023. So we typically think of immigration policy as something that Congress works on legislation and the president signs those bills into law,” Pearson said.
”And as I mentioned, eight years ago there were a number of court decisions that blocked the Trump administration from doing everything that they wanted to do with the border. So I think it's expected that we’ll see many executive orders dealing with immigration. But what's not clear is how many will actually be successful.”
Federal vs. state legislation
“State resources are up to [the] states to decide what they want to do. And so I think we will see some divergence in Democrat-controlled states and Republican-controlled states in terms of responding to some of Trump’s requests. But he can’t just direct states to do some of these things that are up to state law, state courts and would be the result of state legislative action and a governor signing legislation into law,” Pearson said.
“One thing that President Trump has said that he would do that relates to Minnesota and his energy goals specifically, is reversing the 20-year mining ban that President Biden imposed on the Superior National Forest near the Boundary Waters.”
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