The 14th Amendment has long been interpreted to guarantee the right of citizenship to nearly all children born on U.S. soil. Three district courts concluded Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order taking away that right was likely unlawful and issued universal preliminary injunctions barring the order from taking effect.

In a 6-3 vote Friday, the high court’s conservative majority found the lower court judges overstepped. 

“When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too,” reads the majority opinion written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett. 

The court ruled that Trump’s birthright order would not go into effect for 30 days. During that time, the possibility exists that the plaintiffs could successfully reargue for another nationwide injunction under the new rules set by the Supreme Court. But if they fail, birthright citizenship may no longer be automatic in the 28 states that have not challenged the president’s directive.

Trump, appearing in the White House briefing room Friday, said “the Supreme Court has delivered , the separation of powers and the rule of law.” 

The decision does not address the constitutionality of Trump’s move to end birthright citizenship, considered settled  law for nearly 160 years. But it comes at a time when the president is aggressively trying to extend his powers through a barrage of executive orders that now can no longer be as forcefully blocked across the country by a single federal judge who deems them unlawful or unconstitutional. Judges have issued since Trump took office for a second term in January, the Associated Press reported.

It also coincides with the administration’s far-reaching and controversial immigration enforcement campaign that has targeted and swept up those without secure legal status, including students. Educators and advocates are particularly concerned about the fate of young children. 

“The timing could not be worse, with increased ICE activity across the country,” said Adam Strom, executive director of Re-Imagining Migration. “As educators, this makes our jobs even harder. When you fear that your citizenship can be taken away, it’s very hard to learn.”

The ruling came just days after the Supreme Court decided on Monday to to countries other than those in which they were born. Immigrant advocates say both decisions run counter to core American values. 

David C. Baluarte, CUNY School of Law professor and senior associate dean for academic affairs, said if Trump is able to implement his birthright order, some children born in the United States to undocumented parents or those temporarily in the U.S. would be in great jeopardy.

“That means they will be an undocumented immigrant here, and everywhere, in perpetuity — or unless they can convince some country to give them citizenship,” Baluarte said.

Walter Olson, senior fellow at the right-of-center Cato Institute, said now is a “particularly bad” time for the high court to weaken a critical means to check the power of a “scofflaw administration.” 

Olson said the president, through this particular directive, signaled from the outset of his second term that he was seeking to be “very radical” in his authority. He said the birthright issue was a remarkable choice because it was not at all up for debate. 

“The law was very clear on behalf of birthright citizenship,” Olson said. “So, the executive order deserved the immediate unpopularity and outrage that came with it. It’s settled law.” 

reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” Trump argued it “has always excluded” people born in the United States but not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” including those whose mother was unlawfully present in the country and whose father was not a citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of the child’s birth. 

This same restriction applies to those children born to mothers whose presence in the U.S.  is lawful but temporary, including those visiting under the Visa Waiver Program or on a student, work or tourist visa — if the father is also not a citizen or lawful permanent resident, Trump contends.

Margo Schlanger, law professor and director of the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse at the University of Michigan Law School, said the Supreme Court left open three pathways through which the lower courts can block nationwide policies by the Trump administration they believe to be unlawful.

The first is through a lawsuit filed against the government by a state. The second involves a nationwide class action lawsuit, which can be cumbersome, complicated and time consuming: It’s often difficult to prove any group of people have enough in common to constitute a class. The third would allow a lower court to “set aside” a rule it deems unlawful under the . 

Schlanger notes that every one of the three remaining pathways has “major” procedural obstacles. She predicts that the state plaintiffs will go back to their district courts and argue that even under these new Supreme Court rules, they still have grounds for a nationwide injunction because that is the only way to guarantee complete relief from an unlawful executive order. 

At the same time, she said, in one or more of the other cases, private plaintiffs might try to expand to a class. Both or either type of case could land the issue back before the Supreme Court — not for procedural arguments, but to decide the issue on its merits. 

“I don’t expect the Trump administration would win at that point,” Schlanger said. “What they were doing is using this case as an opportunity to restrict the authority of the non-Supreme Court federal courts.” 

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said Friday’s decision leaves Americans with one less tool to fight an “out-of-control” executive branch. 

“Today, the justices have kneecapped the lower courts’ ability to protect Americans from Trump’s most pernicious policy abuses, making it far more difficult to resolve key questions by requiring additional litigation,” she said in a statement. “People need courts to protect them from this or any other administration wreaking havoc on our nation’s laws and Americans’ lives.”

Five days after President Donald Trump issued a seeking to limit how schools support gender nonconforming students and teach about racism, New York City’s educational leaders have yet to issue a systemwide public response, sparking concerns from some parents and educators.

The targeting “radical indoctrination” threatens to withhold federal funding from schools that support students in gender transitions or that teach about the prevalence of racism in American life.

Some have questioned whether the order is lawful or enforceable, given the significant power of states and localities to control their own curriculum. Several and have already sent out communications to families and educators pushing back on the order.

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New York’s state Education Department issued a statement Monday sent to school staffers saying the executive order is “antithetical” to the U.S. Congress’ history of protecting vulnerable students through legislation. “We denounce the intolerant rhetoric of these orders,” the statement continued. “Our children cannot thrive in an environment of chaos; they need steady and stable leadership that we will endeavor to provide.”

But the response in the nation’s largest district — long a national leader in efforts to teach about racial inequity and support gender nonconforming students — has so far been more muted. The city Education Department has not sent any systemwide communication to families or educators, and it hasn’t issued specific guidance for administrators about the executive order, according to families and school staff.

Brooklyn mom Eliza Hittman, whose fifth-grader identifies as nonbinary, said she’s in multiple parent chats where there is a “tremendous amount of agitation” over the lack of communication from administrators.

“The silence is alarming,” Hittman said.

Asked at two recent parent town halls what the city is doing to protect LGBTQ+ students, New York City schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos reaffirmed that city schools do not tolerate any kind of hate.

“Our schools are expected to be safe spaces,” she said Monday at a town hall for District 30 in Queens.

Mark Rampersant, the chief of safety and prevention partnerships, added that New York City is one of the only school districts that has hired someone overseeing ways to foster inclusion for LGBTQ students. “Regardless of what happens on the top, we remain committed to ensuring the physical and well-being of every single one of our students,” he said.

But some parents and educators said the Education Department has not circulated that message widely enough at a time when fear is spreading quickly.

“What we need from our city leadership is … to give clarity and certainty and comfort in this time of chaos,” said Justin Krebs, the parent of a nonbinary child in Brooklyn’s District 15. “Instead, we’re hearing nothing from city leadership on this front.” He added that the city periodically sends notices to all families and he would “love to get that email” reiterating the city’s protections for LGBTQ+ students.

Education Department spokesperson Nicole Bronwstein didn’t say whether the agency plans to issue a systemwide statement, but said, “We are evaluating the Executive Order to determine if it will have any impact on New York City Public Schools.”

Brownstein said, “we remain steadfast in our commitment to fostering a safe, inclusive, and affirming environment where every student can thrive.” She added that the Education Department will ensure ”our school environment remains free from harassment, intimidation, and/or bullying, and free from discrimination of any kind.”

When asked whether she was concerned about the potential loss of federal funding, Aviles-Ramos said at a town hall last week, “We do not know what lies ahead in terms of federal funding,” which makes up about $2 billion of the Education Department’s annual budget.

Some parents and teachers want stronger message of support

Jo Macellaro, a Bronx teacher who identifies as nonbinary, said the lack of a clear public statement from the city sends educators “the message … that we don’t have your back, we’re not going to protect you.”

Absent that assurance, some teachers may decide they can’t take the risk of violating the executive order, Macellaro added. The Parent-Teacher Association from P.S. 139, a Brooklyn elementary school, wrote in a Monday letter to Aviles-Ramos that it’s “disconcerting that we have not received any sort of statement from you or other city or state leadership about this.”

Some parents suspect the city Education Department’s response is constrained by Mayor Eric Adams, who was indicted last fall on federal corruption charges. Trump mayor, and the U.S Department of Justice is reportedly , who has . Adams has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges.

Gavin Healy, a Manhattan parent and member of the Community Education Council in District 2, said he thinks Adams’ political situation may be limiting the Education Department’s ability to respond. “I think doing what’s right for the students is hostage to the mayor’s legal issues and courting of the Trump administration.”

Existing policies offer strong protection for transgender students

The city Education Department’s , which , instructs staff to address students by their preferred pronouns at school. It gives schools some discretion not to inform parents when a student is socially transitioning in cases where a family doesn’t accept their gender identity and allows students to use bathrooms and join sports teams that are consistent with their gender identities.

When Manhattan’s community education council in District 2 passed a resolution last year urging the city to reconsider its sports policy for transgender students, then-Chancellor David Banks as “despicable” and reaffirmed the city’s policy.

Krebs, the Brooklyn parent of a nonbinary student, said he’s not worried about his own child’s school. But in a system this large, without clear instructions from city leadership, some schools and educators might be reluctant to run afoul of the executive order, he said. Krebs drew an analogy to reports that NYU’s Langone Hospital for some patients following a separate executive order banning the practice for people under age 19.

Some schools may “start complying in advance, the same way NYU Langone has,” he said, “when a school says, ‘You know what, to be on the safe side, we’re going to stop calling kids by their pronouns.’”

Johanna Miller, director of the education policy center at the New York Civil Liberties Union, noted that Trump’s executive order charges federal agencies with developing an enforcement plan, and it’s hard to say for sure how the order would be carried out until that happens. The executive order specifically mentions practices like using students’ preferred pronouns, referring to students as nonbinary, and allowing them to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identities as ones that may run afoul of the order. It also targets concepts like white privilege and unconscious bias.

But Miller said that state laws preventing bullying and harassment remain on the books.

“If an educator in New York State reads this executive order from Trump and decides on their own that they’re not going to comply with New York laws, they would be legally liable in that situation for not complying with the law,” she said.

Taking matters into their own hands

Some parent leaders are trying to push the city to issue a more forceful response.

Faraji Hannah-Jones, a member of the Community Education Council for District 13, told Aviles-Ramos at a town hall last week that he doesn’t “think that this office is ready for the shitstorm that is coming.

“I want to know, does your office have a backbone on these issues?” he asked.

Aviles-Ramos responded it’s “very sad to hear there’s a lack of faith in this administration.” She pointed to its work developing new curriculum including Black studies curriculum, for example.

Reached by phone Monday, Hannah-Jones said he’s been sounding the alarm about Trump’s education plans for months and has gotten little response from city officials. The Education Department is more “concerned about bringing us in a back room to have a conversation than having one in public,” he added.

Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a parent in East Harlem and former member of the Panel for Educational Policy, an oversight panel for the city Education Department, drafted a mock resolution opposing the executive order that she hopes local Community Education Councils will modify and adopt.

“It’s our time to raise our voices,” she said.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at . 

Despite the fiery rhetoric, President Donald Trump’s push to eliminate a Department of Education he of abusing “taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America’s youth” comes down, appropriately, to civics and math.

First, the president cannot legally abolish a department with statutory responsibilities embedded in the law. Only Congress can do that.

Most of the public money that flows to the department goes to programs codified in federal legislation. They include Title I ($18 billion annually), special education ($15 billion) and the Office for Civil Rights ($140 million).

To eliminate any of those programs — let alone, to shutter the department outright — or even to move them to another agency, requires a supermajority in Congress. That means seven Democrats and every Republican in the Senate would need to be on board. The political calculus is daunting.

That leaves a motley assemblage of much smaller programs that are not bound up in Congress’s authority. Michael Petrilli, president of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, described those offerings as relative “pocket change” compared to the department’s overall budget.

“I think it’s going to be pretty slim pickings,” he said. 

One notable exception would be the Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, which had almost 130 employees as of the end of December. Congress did not authorize the office, “so it could get axed before 5 today if they wanted,” said David Cleary, a principal with The Group, a Washington lobbying firm and a former Republican education staffer for the Senate. Even this program has functions, like safeguarding student privacy, that only Congress can eliminate.

Trump’s inner circle appears to have reckoned with its legal limitations in an executive order the president is expected to sign before the end of the month. Cleary is among those who was briefed on a draft that would call on lawmakers to eliminate the agency while Trump’s yet-to-be-confirmed education secretary does her part to push out staff and offload functions to other agencies.

“The executive can’t just reorganize or change the authorities on its own,” Cleary said. Laws like the Education Sciences Reform Act and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act “empower and constrain the department in various ways.”

Two other sources, who either saw early drafts or an outline of the proposal and asked not to be named because of ongoing work with the department, agreed the order will take a two-part approach. The first reported on the deliberations Monday.

Some members of Congress are eager to help. A bill from South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds would over a six-month timeline. And Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky reintroduced a on Friday that aims to close the department by the end of 2026. 

But with those proposals unlikely to get the required votes, experts say there’s little Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee to lead the department, can do on her own. In addition to legislation establishing the department in 1979, other laws, like the Higher Education Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, authorize what the department does and how much it spends. 

Petrilli recalled that the first Trump administration eliminated the Office of Innovation and Improvement, which he helped create when he was a department official during President George W. Bush’s administration. The Blue Ribbon Schools program, which recognizes exemplary schools and costs about $100,000 a year to run, could be targeted this time. In keeping with Trump’s against diversity, equity and inclusion, any grants highlighted in a from Parents Defending Education, a conservative advocacy group, would also likely be cut. Those total about $1 billion. Staff efforts have been among the first to be put on leave.

Trump’s team is unafraid to push the envelope, as it has shown with the move to , but Petrilli doesn’t expect Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency to find much else to eliminate without Congress’s OK. 

“This is the big action,” he said of DOGE staff over the weekend. “Then it’s going to be over and they’re going to be on to other things.”

The administration doesn’t have the same level of hostility for the education department as it does for foreign aid programs, added Jim Blew, who served under former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos during Trump’s first term and co-founded the conservative Defense of Freedom Institute.

“USAID sends money overseas, and people don’t understand how that’s in the U.S.’ interest. “I think the White House is reading those tea leaves,” he said. “It’s different for the department. I don’t think the dynamics are the same.”

But he hasn’t written off the idea that Trump could convince enough members of Congress to wind down the department and shift major programs to other agencies. While a showed a majority of Americans don’t want the department eliminated, there are limits to that support. 

“Congress is very frustrated with the amount of money spent and the lack of results,” he said. “That always creates this inflammatory environment.”

The question is whether moving special education to the Department of Health and Human Services, for example, or shifting career and technical programs to the Department of Labor would result in less spending and bureaucracy, said Julia Martin, director of policy and government affairs with The Bruman Group, a Washington law firm. 

Proponents of closing the department, like Sen. Rounds, haven’t provided those details. His bill would send K-12 funding to the states as a block grant, but offered no specifics on how to do it.

If Rounds gets his way, she added, states and districts might not receive the same attention they do now. 

“Despite our occasional frustrations, [the Education Department] has … historically been a user-friendly and responsive agency,” she said. “Having a new agency that is inexperienced and understaffed increases the potential for fraud, waste, and abuse, and decreases responsiveness.”

Some observers speculate that Trump is delaying his executive order so McMahon won’t have to face pointed questions from the Senate education committee over how to implement it. 

While the fate of the department is unclear, the uncertainty over which programs would be cut is creating fear and chaos, said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union.

“There is a lot of toxic distraction right now,” said Rodrigues, who plans to meet with Chief of Staff Rachel Oglesby on Thursday. “What are the priorities? I would like to hope that they have a forward-looking vision for the future of education.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story misrepresented the number of Democrats needed for a supermajority vote in Congress. Seven Democrats and every Republican in the Senate would need to be on board to abolish the Department of Education or eliminate or move certain programs it oversees.

Less than a day later, Trump appeared to rescind the Office of Management and Budget that set the funding “pause” in motion.

But just 30 minutes after that, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt to …rescind the rescission. “This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze,” she posted. “It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo.”

She described her post as an attempt to “end the confusion.”

It didn’t.

“For an administration that wants to make the argument that public education is dysfunctional and not serving our students well, they are amplifying and contributing to that narrative,” said Amy Loyd, CEO of All4Ed, a policy and advocacy organization. Until last October, she served in the Department of Education as assistant secretary for the Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education.

For now, it’s unclear which programs will be affected as the new administration takes stock of spending it deems wasteful or contrary to the president’s agenda. Those goals include freeing up funds for , ending “wokeness” and passing a tax cut package. Start-up funds for charter schools, school lunches, funding for homeless students and hundreds of other federal grants “will be reviewed by department leadership for alignment with Trump administration priorities,” said education department spokeswoman Madison Biederman. 

OMB said it spared major “formula” grants, like Title I for low-income students, special education funding and Impact Aid to districts serving military families. While the administration said Head Start wouldn’t be impacted, the preschool program among thousands to be reviewed.

The administration originally gave agencies until Feb. 7 to identify grants that advance, among other things, “Marxist equity, transgenderism and green new deal social engineering policies.” Over several chaotic hours, district leaders and advocates tried to interpret whether their programs would be cut while coming to terms with the enormity of the president’s actions.

“This is more than a typical partisan divide,” said Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center. “This is an unusual and unprecedented power grab and every member of Congress should be concerned.”

Challenging the administration’s pause on funding Congress had already appropriated, three associations sued Tuesday, asking for a temporary restraining order “to maintain the status quo.” Just before 5 p.m., as the freeze was about to start, U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan granted the request, noting the “specter of irreparable harm.”

Afterschool programs, food banks and organizations that arrange for children to be driven to cancer treatment centers are among those that would be impacted, said Rick Cohen, a spokesman for the National Council of Nonprofits, one of the groups that filed . Another plaintiff, Main Street Alliance, a network of small businesses, said its members include child care centers that serve low-income families using federal assistance so they can work. 

‘Grave situation’

For many leaders, Tuesday was a rollercoaster.

Just after lunch, Marvin Connelly, superintendent of the Cumberland County Schools in North Carolina, was trying to figure out how he’d handle a potential freeze on over $2 million in Impact Aid — funds that help make up for lost property tax revenue when there’s a nearby military installation. A high-poverty district, Cumberland schools serve over 8,000 children of active service members stationed at Fort Liberty.

“We could really be in a grave situation,” he said. Less than two hours later, he learned the funds would not be affected.

Meanwhile Barbara Duffield, executive director of SchoolHouse Connection, which supports homeless students, was participating on a panel at a conference in Washington when some nonprofit leaders told her they were unable to access federal funds for homeless youth and families.

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The effort to pause funding followed the president’s first-day that prohibits federal spending on diversity, equity and inclusion. On Thursday, the administration hundreds of guidance documents, reports and training materials related to DEI and put staff members focusing on equity within the department on leave.

“Who knew dismantling could happen this quickly?” Ian Rowe, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and the founder of a network of charter schools, told The 74. “If these moves put America on a path to becoming a colorblind society, that is a very good thing.”

Many conservatives argue such programs amount to a form of illegal discrimination and waste money. Neera Deshpande, a policy analyst at the Independent Women’s Forum, pointed to that shows the Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia spent $6.4 million to staff its equity office.

“What is that money accomplishing besides adding layers of bureaucracy to the school system, burdening teachers, and taking away time and money from schools that could be used for instructional purposes or even extracurricular activities for students?” she asked. “Every dollar that is allocated toward DEI is a dollar that’s not allocated toward … teacher salaries or arts programs or literacy support or sports.”

The reversal in priorities at the federal level has left some nonprofit leaders in a bind. When former President Joe Biden was in office, the director of a teacher apprenticeship initiative applied for a Department of Labor grant to help recruit a diverse pool of potential teachers. Now, he doesn’t know whether that emphasis will hurt his application.

“I hope they can strike a balance with sanity here,” said the man, who asked not to be named to keep from jeopardizing the grant. “I’m not going to talk about the diversity part, but we still have a significant crisis in the teacher pipeline. We have to attract individuals into this profession.”

‘Top-down review’

With more than targeted for potential review, it’s unclear which might ultimately be left on the chopping block.

But at least one Republican said the National School Lunch Program shouldn’t be off limits. On , Georgia GOP Rep. Rich McCormick suggested low-income students shouldn’t depend on schools for meals. The program, which costs roughly $17 billion, provides free and reduced-price meals for over 28 million children during the school year and extends services through the summer with the help of parks, recreation centers and other community organizations.

“You’re telling me that kids who stay at home instead of going to work at Burger King, McDonald’s, during the summer, should stay at home and get their free lunch instead of going to work?” he asked. “I think we need to have a top-down review.”

Other advocates noted that while federal funds make up only about 10% of a district’s operating budget, some school systems rely on those dollars more than others. In 2023, AASA, the School Superintendents Association, created showing that overall, federal funds account for a larger share of district budgets in GOP-led states, mainly those in the South and West.

“Any conversation about federal funding levels — whether a cut in overall level or a proposal to freeze access — requires us to be very honest about the role of federal dollars in local school districts, and to be candid about the facts of who … is more reliant on federal dollars,” said Noelle Ellerson Ng, associate executive director for advocacy governance at AASA.

Responding to news reports that the president had rescinded the freeze memo, Leavitt, the press secretary, posted that the president’s executive orders nonetheless “remain in full force and effect.” 

Ng doesn’t know where that leaves the nation’s schools, but she’s run out of patience. Regarding Leavitt’s post, she asked, “Did it attempt to end confusion, or add a layer for today?”

A federal judge in Washington state today President Donald J. Trump’s three-day-old executive order to end birthright citizenship. U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour, a Reagan appointee, called the order .” He agreed with the four state plaintiffs that it would cause irreparable harm to those denied their right to citizenship, subjected to the risk of deportation and family separation and deprived of federally funded medical care and public benefits that “prevent child poverty and promote child health,” also impacting their education. A separate federal lawsuit is pending in Massachusetts.

— plus San Francisco and Washington, D.C. — and several civil rights groups are suing to block President Donald J. Trump’s move to undo birthright citizenship through executive order, a constitutional challenge education leaders say could transform public schools. 

Trump, who rode a to a second term, argues that to any child whose mother is unlawfully present in the United States or lawfully present on a temporary basis — such as foreign students — and whose father is neither a citizen nor a lawful permanent resident. 

The move garnered immediate backlash: Birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868. It states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” 

“If you lose the protections of birthright citizenship and is overturned or somehow ignored, then I think a lot of families would withdraw their children from school out of fear of deportation,” said immigration advocate and policy expert Timothy Boals, referring to the 1982 Supreme Court case which forbids schools from denying enrollment based on a child’s or their parents’ immigration status. 

Conservative forces aligned with the Trump administration have been strategizing an end to Plyler . That potential threat is now being amplified with the affront on birthright citizenship and Tuesday’s announcement that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are now free to , churches and other once-protected areas. The president has already pledged and a return to .

“What that means is more children are denied an education and that’s not good for our society if they end up staying,” said Boals, “and it’s certainly not good for the students wherever they end up going.”

Speaking specifically about the ICE enforcement change, Laura Gardner, who founded Immigrant Connections, a consulting group that works with educators, said the policy will create “intense fear” and could negatively impact student attendance and family engagement. It will also be difficult for teachers, whom she said can’t do their job when children aren’t in school. 

“As educators, we always remind students and families that schools are a safe space and now we can’t really guarantee that,” she told The 74. “Ultimately, all this is going to do is hurt innocent children.”

About lived with an unauthorized immigrant parent in 2022, according to the Pew Research Center. About 250,000 babies were born to unauthorized immigrant parents in the United States in 2016, the latest year for which information is available, according to . This represents a 36% decrease from a peak of about 390,000 in 2007.

The president also seeks to prohibit government agencies from issuing documents recognizing an infant’s citizenship if born under the circumstances he outlined — or from accepting documents issued by state, local or other authorities acknowledging their citizenship. 

The controversial order could go into effect Feb. 19, leaving children born on U.S. soil to non-citizen parents, from that date on, without any legal status. “They will all be deportable and many will be stateless,” according to . 

It said Trump has no right to rewrite or nullify a constitutional amendment, “Nor is he empowered by any other source of law to limit who receives United States citizenship at birth.”

Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups fighting the move, called it a reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values.

“Birthright citizenship is part of what makes the United States the strong and dynamic nation that it is,” he said. “This order seeks to repeat one of the gravest errors in American history, by creating a permanent subclass of people born in the U.S. who are denied full rights as Americans.”

Romero’s remarks harken back to one of the Supreme Court’s most reviled rulings: . In that 1857 case, the court ruled that enslaved people, including Dred Scott, were not citizens of the United States and, as a result, could not expect any protection from the federal government or courts, according to the . 

The ruling, which pushed the nation toward civil war, was essentially undone by the 13th and 14th amendments. 

New York Attorney General Letitia James lambasted Trump for trying to reverse what has been a hallmark of the nation for more than 150 years.

“This executive order is nothing but an attempt to sow division and fear, but we are prepared to fight back with the full force of the law to uphold the integrity of our Constitution,” she said. “As Attorney General, I will always protect the legal rights of immigrants and their families and communities.”

If Trump’s order is implemented, the U.S. would join other nations that do not allow birthright citizenship — or greatly restrict such protections — including and Australia. 

As of 2022, reported that unauthorized immigrants represented 3.3% of the total U.S. population and 23% of the foreign-born population: Immigrants as a whole comprised 14.3% of the nation’s population that year, below the record high of 14.8% reached in 1890.

At an inaugural prayer service Tuesday, an Episcopal bishop made to reconsider his views on immigrants and their kids. 

“… they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors,” the Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde said. “… I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear their parents will be taken away …”

The next day Trumpand described Edgar Budde as a “so-called Bishop” and a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater” who was not compelling or smart.

“I’m directing the members of my cabinet to return to me within 110 days with resources and information for schools to improve active-shooter drills, minimize this harm, create age-appropriate content and communicate with parents before and after these drills happen,” Biden said during a Thursday afternoon White House event. “We just have to do better and we can do better.” 

Students nationwide participate in active-shooter drills, between school districts and have received mixed reviews as to their effectiveness from students, parents and educators. In some states, including New York, lawmakers have sought to scale back routine drills amid concerns they’ve exacerbated the youth mental health crisis. A approved this summer bans realistic drills that use props and actors to mimic real-world school shooting scenarios. 

Biden also ordered on Thursday the creation of a new task force to assess the threat of conversion kits that allow semi-automatic guns to be modified into fully automatic weapons, so-called “ghost guns” without serial numbers and weapons created with 3D printers. 

The efforts fit into the president’s agenda to toughen gun laws and prevent mass shootings. The Rose Garden announcement also featured Vice President Kamala Harris, who in a tight presidential race against Republican Donald Trump has positioned herself as a gun owning-Democrat in favor of stricter firearms restrictions. Trump has the endorsement of the National Rifle Association.  

“It is a false choice to suggest you are either in favor of the Second Amendment or you want to take everyone’s guns away,” Harris said. “I am in favor of the Second Amendment and I believe we need to reinstate the assault weapons ban and pass universal background checks, safe storage laws and red flag laws.” 

Active shooter drills have become routine in schools nationwide although a White House fact sheet notes there is “very limited research on how to design and deploy” them in a way that’s effective without becoming harmful in themselves. Though the executive order doesn’t mandate the drills or specific strategies on how to conduct them, it directs the U.S. Education Department and the Department of Homeland Security to publish a report outlining the existing research on their efficacy, how to design them in ways that are age-appropriate and “how to prevent students and educators from experiencing trauma or psychological stress associated with these drills.” 

Rob Wilcox, the deputy director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, told The 74 on Wednesday that the variation in how drills are being conducted presents a need for federal officials to analyze their usefulness and provide guidance around the best path forward. 

Along with “traditional lockdown drills” where students are instructed to shelter in place behind closed doors, he said the Biden administration has been warned about the psychological harms of “unannounced simulations” where “fake guns, fake blood, fake gunshots” and a militarized police response are used to portray real-world assaults. 

“The president and vice president have heard from parents and students across the country about the need to know more about these drills and the need to really understand what our kids are going through,” Wilcox said. “What is the effective way to do it and what are the harmful ways?”

Traumatizing — or empowering? 

Teachers are split on the value of active-shooter drills, according to released this month. Fewer than half of educators said the drills have prepared them for a school shooting. More than two-thirds said they have had no impact on their perceptions of campus safety and just a fifth said they made them feel more safe.

A Pew Research Center survey found that a quarter of teachers experienced lockdowns in the 2022-23 school year because of gun incidents at their campuses. While 39% of teachers gave their schools a fair or poor job of training them to deal with active assailants, a smaller share — 30% — gave their school leadership an excellent or very good rating.

About two-thirds of parents of K-12 students say that children should be required to participate in at least one active-shooter drill per year and 83% were confident their kids’ schools were well equipped to keep them safe, released last fall. While 80% of respondents said the drill should be “evidence-based and age-appropriate,” just 36% said they should feature the sounds of guns or gunshots. 

that active-shooter drills , but other researchers have sought to combat that narrative. A in the peer-reviewed Journal of School Violence found children exposed to gun violence feel safer after undergoing lockdown drills. 

Research into the psychological impact of active-shooter drills and lockdown drills has generally treated all procedures as one in the same, said Jaclyn Schildkraut, the lead author of the Journal of School Violence report and executive director of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium at New York’s Rockefeller Institute of Government. Given that schools have deployed a range of drills — and because some efforts may be more effective than others — she said it’s “very important that we do have very clear guidance about what schools are being asked to do.”

Drills that seek to mimic active shootings have, in particular, become a point of controversy. In one in 2019, teachers reported injuries after they were shot with pellet guns during a mock shooting simulation at their elementary school. While some drills have taught kids to shelter in place during a shooting, others have instructed kids to use school supplies as makeshift weapons and fight back against an armed assailant. In some communities, schools have and as a solution to help kids defend themselves. 

But the drills, including those criticized for traumatizing kids, have been credited with saving lives during campus shootings, which remain statistically rare but have reached record highs in the last several years. During a shooting at Michigan’s Oxford High School in 2021, a 16-year-old student was reportedly shot as he charged at the assailant — an act that cost the star running back his life but the county sheriff said likely saved his classmates. 

“We don’t light schools on fire to practice a fire drill, yet we know that some schools are simulating active-shooter situations to practice for an active shooter,” Schildkraut said. 

The effects of conducting realistic shooting scenarios, she said, should not be conflicted with the impacts of less-invasive emergency preparation like lockdowns. 

Keeping guns locked

Thursday’s executive order coincided with the release of a new Education Department tool designed to encourage families to keep their guns at home behind lock and key. 

The outlines state safe-storage and child-access prevention laws, which have been adopted in 31 states and penalize gun owners who fail to lock their weapons or who provide access to them to an unsupervised child. Though no such laws exist at the federal level, the Education Department website says the state-based efforts are an “important step towards keeping our youth, schools, and communities safe.”

The website also features examples of community and school district measures to promote firearm storage, including by the Cincinnati, Ohio, school district and a campaign at Colorado’s Cherry Creek School District, which distributed several hundred gun locks to families for free last year.

“When school administrators communicate with parents about safe storage of firearms in their homes, it motivates parents to act,” Biden said Thursday. 

About three-quarters of school shooters get their guns from a parent or another close relative, according to . In about half of cases, the guns had been readily accessible.

Prosecutors have increasingly turned to the actions — and inactions — of the parents of school shooters, who are . 

Earlier this month, a 54-year-old father from Georgia was arrested on murder charges after his 14-year-old son was accused of carrying out a shooting at Apalachee High School that left two of his classmates and two math teachers dead. The boy was given an AR-15-style rifle as a holiday gift last year.

In April, Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were each given decade-long prison sentences in first-of-their-kind convictions after their son, who was 15 years old at the time, killed four students in the 2021 Oxford High School shooting. The parents gave their son the 9-millimeter handgun used in the assault as a Christmas gift and stored it in an unlocked drawer in their bedroom despite warning signs the teenager planned to act violently. 

“After current events, especially in Georgia, it’s beyond clear that safe storage in the home is essential,” Wilcox, the White House gun prevention office deputy director, told The 74. “Fourteen-year-olds should not have access to assault weapons.”