It has been legal to burn US flags since 1989 following a Supreme Court ruling.Donald Trump has signed an executive order at the White House today (25 August) making it illegal to burn American flags.The 47th US President has not been shy in signing orders and bills since coming into office in January this year, starting his second term in office with a tirade of new policies.
While he has been spending the bulk of his time trying to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, we can’t forget that the 79-year-old has been making a number of changes in his own country.He’s introduced a travel ban for some and cracked down heavily on immigration, even making a passing comment at the White House which disgusted viewers a couple of months ago.
Trump isn’t slowing down though, announcing his latest move in front of press in the Oval Office.The executive order has told federal prosecutors to pursue criminal charges against individuals who burn American flags during protests.It also orders attorney general Pam Bondi in particular, to look back at cases where people have been caught burning flags, and see if they could be charged with other crimes, such as disturbing the peace or breaking environmental laws.
The move comes as Trump tries to get around a Supreme Court decision from 1989, as they ruled 5-4 in Texas v Johnson that destroying the flag is an action which is protected political expression under the first amendment.Though it was 36 years ago, the flag-burning laws in 48 of 50 states were discarded and signalled that people could do so as a way to freely express their political views. But this is no longer the case.Speaking while signing the order, Trump said: “All over the country they’re burning flags,
“All of over the world they burn the American flag, and as you know, through a very sad court, I guess it was a 5-4 decision, they called it freedom of speech.”
He simply said if ‘you burn a flag, you get one year in jail’ while speaking in the Oval Office, though the order doesn’t reveal details about a jail sentence.If we rewind back to 2016, it’s clear that Trump has long campaigned for the criminalisation of the act, writing on social media at the time: “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag – if they do, there must be consequences – perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!”
A YouGov survey from 2023 found that over half of Americans (59%) found flag burning in protests to be unacceptable.
