Since President Donald Trump took office on January 20, he has issued several executive orders. To understand the importance and potential consequences of these actions, let’s review legal scholarship on the topic in HeinOnline.

NOTE: HeinOnline’s content is composed of image-based PDFs, which are exact replicas of original print documents, so authenticity is never a question. Also, we promise that none of the content will spontaneously vanish from the site.

A search for title: “executive order” OR title: “executive power” OR title: “presidential power” produces nearly 600 results in the Law Journal Library. Sort results by Number of Times Cited by Articles to view the most cited material first:

The most-cited article from among these results is by Michael Stokes Paulsen, who ranks 163 overall when averaging the number of times his articles have been cited by other articles and cases, as well as accessed by other HeinOnline users within a rolling 12-month period. Click an author’s name from within any search result or from within a table of contents to view the author’s profile and a list of scholarship written by the author.

The United States Congress has also extensively addressed the principle of executive power. A search for (“executive order” OR “executive orders”) AND “presidential power”~10 produces more than 3,800 results, among which are more than 2,500 items in the Congressional Record and more than 850 Congressional Hearings. To view only hearings, select the appropriate box from the document type facet. Note that text matching your search criteria is highlighted in yellow throughout the results:

The same search query produces hundreds of results in the Federal Register Library. Executive orders are contained within the Federal Register, which is a daily publication of the U.S. federal government that also issues proposed and final administrative regulations of federal agencies.

---

Executive Power Specifically in Relation to Immigration

Arguably the most controversial among the recently-issued executive orders is the order signed Friday, January 27. This order indefinitely suspended the admission of Syrian refugees to the United States, and limited the admission of other refugees and immigrants. This order was published in the February 1 issue of the Federal Register and is available in HeinOnline here. 

Another controversial directive, Executive Order 13767, was signed on January 25 and orders, in part, the construction of a secure border wall and is available in the Federal Register here.

An abundance of legal scholarship on executive power and immigration is available in the Law Journal Library. Below is a list of several recently-published articles that may be of interest to researchers:

1. Executive Action on Immigration: Constitutional or Direct Conflict [notes] 
   Florida A & M University Law Review, Vol. 10, Issue 2 (Spring 2015), pp. 451-474
   Curtin, Todd
   10 Fla. A & M U. L. Rev. 451 (2014-2015)
2. Taking Care of Immigration Law: Presidential Stewardship, Prosecutorial Discretion, and the Separation of Powers [article] 
   Boston University Law Review, Vol. 94, Issue 1 (January 2014), pp. 105-178
   Margulies, Peter (Cited 1056 times)
   94 B.U. L. Rev. 105 (2014)
3. Peter Approved My Visa, but Paul Denied It: An Analysis of How the Recent Visa Bulletin Crisis Illustrates the Madness That Is U.S. Immigration Procedure [article] 
   DePaul Journal for Social Justice, Vol. 9, Issue 2 (Summer 2016), pp. 1-17
   Callan, Emily C.; Callan, JohnPaul
   9 DePaul J. Soc. Just. 1 (2015-2016)
4. Beyond Legality: The Legitimacy of Executive Action in Immigration Law [article] 
   Syracuse Law Review, Vol. 66, Issue 1 (2016), pp. 87-156
   Chen, Ming H. (Cited 20 times)
   66 Syracuse L. Rev. 87 (2016)
5. Immigration Separation of Powers and the President’s Power to Preempt [article] 
   Notre Dame Law Review, Vol. 90, Issue 2 (December 2014), pp. 691-734
   Kim, Catherine Y. (Cited 51 times)
   90 Notre Dame L. Rev. 691 (2014-2015)
6. The Executive Power of Process in Immigration Law [article] 
   Chicago-Kent Law Review, Vol. 91, Issue 1 (2016), pp. 59-90
   Family, Jill E. (Cited 107 times)
   91 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 59 (2016)

As the topics of immigration and executive orders continue to be debated among both elected officials and the general public, HeinOnline will continue to be a reliable provider of original primary and secondary sources on these subjects and we will continue to work to enable researchers to have the most accurate and thorough research platform available.

For help searching and navigating within the database, contact the HeinOnline support team at (800) 277-6995, email us, or chat with us!