My Stab at the Top 3 Trump Executive Orders On Tap for Day One

Topic: Perspective

As a numbers guy, I always pay close attention to something called sample size. In statistical analysis, it matters a lot. For example, a hitter sustaining a .300 batting average for a decade should be held in higher regard than one who has sustained a .400 batting average over 10 games. In the case of the latter, a few base hits that found holes provided the difference between a mark of .250 and that gaudy .400 mark. In the case of the former, the .300 average has withstood the scorching line drives that found gloves, slumps, injuries, and every ace pitcher in the league. Consistency over time is the key to all things great.

President Trump is reportedly getting ready to unleash more than 100 executive orders immediately upon reentering the White House on the afternoon of January 20. Keep in mind, positive consistency from the nation’s chief executives would ideally find them relying upon a sound legislature, spanning presidential transfers of power, to address the nation’s problems. Unfortunately for the American public, the legislative branch is largely compromised, all the way down to the state level, and the judiciary issues political decisions when any action cuts too deeply into the corruption.

There is certainly a role for executive orders, otherwise the framers wouldn’t have created the office of President with such powers – even though the Constitution does not address executive orders directly. In an ideal world, our presidents would hit a proverbial .300 with a legislature focused on addressing the problems of the day. In our day, we would see legislation to handle the porous border(s), allocate spending appropriately to problem areas, address government fraud and malfeasance (as we see with our elections system in shambles), and strengthen penalties for heinous crimes, among other items. Anything slipping through the cracks could be tightened by executive order, with an honest judicial branch present to handle any overreach by the chief executive.

I believe most of the executive orders issued in the coming week will be just and celebrated by most Americans. The sad reality, however, is that because of the corruption of the legislative and judicial branches, the best Americans can hope for is a benevolent, all-powerful chief executive. Establishing the standard that any new president can simply executive order his way to fixing the country will inevitably pave the way for a true tyrant to come to power one day and work on precedent; that is the cost of the compromising our of legislative and judicial branches. We’ve had a glimpse of this with Barack Obama and Joe Biden - and I suspect we haven’t seen anything yet.

Because of the current state of affairs, Trump has no chance to bat .300 over an eight-year stretch, handing off to a successor for another eight-year extension. He must hit .400 in four years, and doing so requires drastic action that will most likely be combatted fiercely through the political bureaucracy’s corrupt judicial branch, especially when it comes to containing and reversing the impacts of illegal immigration, slicing the size of the administrative (deep) state, and shredding the policies of Trump’s Democrat (and maybe even Republican) predecessors.

Simply put, here in the year 2025, we have no other option but for the chief executive to take things into the end zone himself. There has been much speculation as to what executive actions are looming, and in my opinion, these are the Top 3 Executive Orders likely to be signed by President Trump for restoring order and sanity to these United States:

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I. End of “Catch and Release”

I live near the southern border and recently overheard a group of border patrol agents at a restaurant talking about how they thought things would go down once Trump took office again. With more than 100 Day One executive orders expected, and many to do with immigration enforcement, I suspect “Catch and Release” will be terminated as a fulfillment of a key campaign promise and deterrent against continued illegal incursions as Trump’s deportation operations ramp up.

I have already suggested I believe Tom Homan, who doesn’t even need Senate confirmation, will be one of the most important Trump officials, and getting rid of “Catch and Release,” which allows detained illegal immigrants to roam free pending court proceedings, is key to letting Homan loose. This will likely require the issuance of another order – Remain in Mexico. If it is issued with the same verbiage of the 2019 order, it would require “asylum” seekers to wait in Mexico for their asylum hearings. This would drastically reduce the volume of those claiming “asylum” when that is not what they’re after. All immigration orders will be sent for clear emphasis that the tolerance threshold for our ongoing border crisis has been surpassed and will no longer be accepted as normal. The boldest move that could be made with regard to the broader topic of demography would be to end birthright citizenship, a move that would be hotly contested in courts because it is probably the most significant reason we have such a surplus of new arrivals in the United States, which should have citizenship that means something.