Within hours though of taking office, President Donald Trump signed more than a dozen executive orders to make good on campaign promises, like addressing our border crisis, withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord and more. Attorneys general here in Connecticut, and in many blue states, were ready for this day, and our state was one of them.
Every president uses them to take immediate action on an issue to avoid congressional approval and get their issue pushed through.
President Biden used executive orders to eliminate federal student loan debt, for example.
Within hours though of taking office, President Donald Trump signed more than a dozen executive orders to make good on campaign promises, like addressing our border crisis, withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord and more.
Attorneys general here in Connecticut, and in many blue states, were ready for this day, and our state was one of them.
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Connecticut Attorney General William Tong gives us an idea of what he's been working on for months now.
Mike Hydeck: First, in your estimation, you're one of the AGs in blue states across the country. How many states are involved in this similar effort?
William Tong: So there are about 23 of us. In our case, there were 18 states, D.C. and San Francisco to stop what was a blatantly unconstitutional executive order. We sued on Tuesday. We got a temporary restraining order blocking the executive order yesterday.
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Mike Hydeck: Which executive order? Because there were so many.
William Tong: So it's the birthright citizenship executive order, which I think really represents a war on the American people and all of us. Why do I say that? Because so many people, including this guy, are Americans by right of our birth. For me, not far from here, in Hartford Hospital. My parents were both immigrants, and they were not yet citizens when I was born. And so I became an American because I was born here, and because of that, my parents put everything into me, and I'm rooted in this place, and all the opportunities I've had educationally, you know, professionally, and the chance to run for office, all because I was a citizen at birth.
Mike Hydeck: So now moving forward, people who don't know the process, how do you sue the federal government? It's a pretty big entity. Obviously you have some AGs, you know, banding together to do this. But how do you do, where do you file the paperwork?
William Tong: So federal court in Massachusetts, actually, the 18 of us decided that was the right place to go. This, as you know, is not my first rodeo. I was attorney general for the second half of Trump 1.0 and and we built a firewall. Then that firewall never came down. We've had this firewall up ever since. When we've sued the Trump administration in the past, we won 80, 90% of the time. And as long as this continues to be a legal and a process battle, we like our chances. But this fight over birthright citizenship, it's not a close call. You know, just look at the language of the 14th Amendment. It's clear. It's obvious by its very words, if you're born on American soil, you're an American.
Mike Hydeck: So to move the needle on this, where does it go? Does it just get stuck in court for the next four years? Are there other things, like, if this goes through to, you know, maybe the Supreme Court level, that's about changing the constitution, right?
William Tong: Yeah. So there are two cases going right now, at least two. One in Washington state, that was the one where we got the temporary restraining order. Washington state federal court. And there's one in Massachusetts, and that's our case. We expect them to move quickly. And I expect the one in Washington to get up to the Court of Appeals there. I expect that something like that will happen here, and it may end up in the Supreme Court. I don't know, but I don't think it's going to be slow.
Mike Hydeck: So in the past, we've done stories here in Connecticut, New Haven specifically, where people were concerned about their immigration status. They were hiding in churches. They were hiding in basements of schools. Do we see that happening again? And now you have the executive order that President Trump says, "Look, ICE officials can go into schools and go into churches." Where do we stand on that?
William Tong: Yeah, so he's saying they're not going to, you know, resist sensitive places. They're going to go into sensitive places like churches and schools, and what I'm really concerned about is the chaos, right? How much disruption this is going to cause to people here in Connecticut that are part of our communities, that, you know, work in our businesses, that run small businesses, that are our friends, our neighbors, our family. Will they go underground? Will they stop sending their kids to school? Will they stop showing up to work? What if somebody is sick in their household? Will they not go to the hospital or call the doctor? Will they not call 911, if somebody burglarizes their house or hits their car, breaks into their car? This is so disruptive to Connecticut, not just to Connecticut families, but to our economy, because all these people are part of our economy, powers Connecticut's economic growth and the engine that we need to be successful here in Connecticut.
Mike Hydeck: We're going to talk about this later, but I just want to get your opinion. What about the immigrants that have proven to have a criminal record? How do you feel about that?
William Tong: All of us agree. I think you and I agree that if you commit a crime, you should be investigated, prosecuted and sentenced, and if you commit a violent crime, you hurt somebody, you should be investigated, prosecuted, incarcerated, and, if appropriate, deported. Nobody disagrees about that, and there's nothing in Connecticut law that's contrary to that. Connecticut law supports that proposition, and I support it, too. So let's do that. Let's focus on crime. Let's focus on public safety. Let's not go after fifth graders. Let's not go after people who are working here and running a business. Let's not go after the people that we need, people like my family, who came here with nothing. They came to the Hartford area. My parents opened a Chinese restaurant. They worked 12 to 15 hours a day, seven days a week. I watched them work themselves sick, just to give me and my four sisters every opportunity so that in one generation, I could go from our family's Chinese restaurant, first in Park Street and then in Wethersfield, to being here as the attorney general of our state.
