Many people on the Vineyard may be astonished by the sheer number and fast pace of executive orders issued from the White House over the first 100 days of the Trump administration. But it’s possible to judge three key domestic issues to determine their impact on Islanders and all Americans: immigration, government cuts, and the economy.
First, a comment on the meaning of “100 days.” The term’s origin dates to 1815, from Napoleon’s return from exile to his defeat at Waterloo and then to the restoration of the French monarchy. A French official called it “les cent jours.” In 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the phrase in one of his first “fireside chats,” a series of radio addresses designed to restore Americans’ confidence during the depths of the Great Depression.
During his first 100 days, President Roosevelt did not work alone. While he issued some executive orders, his main achievement was to work with Congress to pull the U.S. out of an economic disaster. He signed 15 major laws passed by Congress in 100 days.
In contrast, President Trump signed a flurry of 142 executive orders in 100 days, while Congress passed five relatively insignificant bills; the most important was a stopgap funding bill to keep the government open.
Second, consider the consequences of executive orders. Presidents have issued executive orders since President Washington signed the 1793 Neutrality Proclamation when France was at war with other European countries and Britain. President Lincoln issued the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in the states that seceded from the Union by executive order.
But not all such orders are within the authority of the President of the U.S. For example, President Trump used the past 100 days to undertake an inhumane immigration policy, again by executive orders, while Congress was silent. Article I empowers Congress to control immigration, but President Trump misused a 1798 law to deport undocumented immigrants to an El Salvadoran camp reserved for terrorists.
A Trump-nominated federal judge in South Texas ruled Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to remove migrants violates the Constitution. Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. held that the government may implement the act only when there is “a military incursion,” and said the president’s use of the measure “is contrary to the plain, ordinary meaning of the statute’s terms.”
Several rulings by federal judges have held that the administration must return migrants sent to El Salvador, but the administration has ignored the rulings. These migrants include several who were here legally, but whom the government moved quickly to remove without due process. A conservative, Reagan-nominated judge, J. Harvie Wilkinson, wrote in April that the government was “asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order.” He ruled that the government’s view “should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”
The Trump administration was so haphazard in sending people to the prison that it mistakenly sent eight women to the prison designed only for men. And the administration has wrongly deported over a dozen U.S. citizens. No one is safe.
Meanwhile, Congress alone controls appropriations and the budget. Trump does not have the constitutional or legal authority to defund, for example, the Department of Education; only Congress may do so. But on March 20, he did just that.
Nor does President Trump have the constitutional or legal authority to empower unelected and nongovernmental billionaire Elon Musk to move into federal departments and agencies to shutter them. Federal judges and even the Supreme Court have tentatively stepped in to stop these efforts. By the end of April, some 220 lawsuits were filed against the administration.
All these reductions will negatively impact many of our neighbors, but none more so than if Congress reduces funding for Medicaid. The White House claims the program that provides healthcare for the poor and disabled will not be touched. Yet, according to Politico, many Republican members of Congress want to “cut more than a half-trillion dollars from the safety-net health program over the coming decade.”
Finally, the same may be said of Trump’s tariffs leading to an international trade war. Again, Congress controls the budget and tariff policy, but it has allowed presidents to implement tariffs
in an emergency. But what was the emergency, when the economy handed over to the Trump administration by President Biden was the strongest in the world? Now, thanks to a slew of executive orders, it is down in the dumps, negatively affecting all of us.
A president in a democratic country may not act alone. He is not a king. He may not unilaterally make law. Executive orders are directives to the executive branch only. They do not have the force of law, as when Congress acts. But if Congress fails to assert its constitutional authority, only the courts are left to ensure that the U.S. remains a democratic nation under law. If court orders are not heeded, we will have a despotic government.
Jack Fruchtman, who lives in Aquinnah, is the author of “American Constitutional History: A Brief Introduction” (second ed., 2022) and “The Supreme Court and Constitutional Law” (fourth ed., 2025).
All these laws the writer talks about are subject to private interpretation hence we have judges in lower courts and upper courts who disagree what it really means. There is no clear understanding of the Alien Enemies Act. Line up 5 judges and each one will have a differing view. So yes I would ignore the order. The writer might have given Osama bin Laden Habeas Corpus instead of dumping him in the sea. Due Process? I think not. Americans believe this country was invaded in the last 4 years with millions of illegals and many of whom were bad people. We want to send them back and we dont care about the finer points of due process.
I agree that Biden and the Democrats looked the other way and allowed millions of migrants to claim asylum and access the U.S. illegally. However, it is truly not possible for you — or anyone else — to claim that “many” are “bad people”. Jumping to that conclusion is not even the point & is an unnecessary judgement. Too many people were allowed in under a system that is totally flawed. That cannot be allowed to happen again.
Secure the border. Limit asylum seekers to one million a year. Create a reasonable pathway to citizenship.
I should not have used the word ”many”. I should have said ”none” or maybe said ”100”. You agreed ”millions” but ”many” could not have happened. We also shouldnt judge. If we didnt judge our jails would be empty.
Why would the Democratic Party put up the worst presidential candidates since Michael Dukakis (showing my age here…..) against an opposing party if their candidate was an existential threat? Elections have consequences. You have to win them. Can anyone still say with a straight face that A)Biden was fit to serve a second term and B) Harris was a strong candidate? Not trying to stir the hornets nest here, but this last election was another Bill Buckner moment for the Democrats. For the record, I voted Harris/Walz in case you think this is MAGA trolling.
Two really bad choices.
You made the best possible. choice.
Democracy is often best expressed by who vote against.
All I can say is thank God Harris didn’t win!
Trump is pushing strongly for women to have more babies.
Trump is deporting immigrants without due process.
If we need more people in the US for continued economic growth, why aren’t immigrants good enough?
If they put up the worse candidate since Dukakis why did you vote for them?
Andrew, at the time I thought it was a lesser of two insanities. Through the lens of hindsight, I would’ve sat this election out.
Democrats are in no position to claim a worry over a despotic government. A pot can indeed call a kettle black, but Americans took notice and voted accordingly. Why did dem voters go along with the deceit of the democrats’ greed, power, and abuse of America’s trust? Why are they still pretending Harris was a decent candidate– not worse than what Republicans offered? We witnessed an elder abuse and abuse of the American public by the dem party in power that was so extreme it was nothing short of criminal. Every democrat who saw Biden every day these last two years, at least, is responsible. As the newly released recordings of Biden trying and failing to answer a single investigative question prove, Biden was the shell of his former self, a old man with a mind so far gone and wandering that it made me cry listening to it. Even the democrats’ betrayal of Israel and failure to bring home American hostages was not Joe Biden, but those around him, including his staff, and including Harris who thinks that having a Jewish Hall of Shame spouse hides her antisemitic view of Israel. Who did America think was running the country these last 2+ years? Our President has access to the best medical care in the world, and yet here we are, 4 months after the end of the Biden presidency, and Joe Biden has a prostatic cancer so advanced it has has metastized to his bones. That does not happen in 4 months. How Jill Biden and Hunter Biden allowed for this abuse is beyond me. They are complicit in what amounts to murder of a pathetic, demented old man.
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