Executive Order 14359 explained · Executive Order · No disposition noted
Fostering the Future for American Children and Families
Signed: 2025-11-13 Published: 2025-11-19 Federal Register document: 2025-20406
Agencies: Executive Office of the President
What Executive Order 14359 says
Federal Register, Volume 90 Issue 221 (Wednesday, November 19, 2025) [Federal Register Volume 90, Number 221 (Wednesday, November 19, 2025)] [Presidential Documents] [Pages 52227-52229] From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] [FR Doc No: 2025-20406] [[Page 52225]] Vol. 90 Wednesday, No. 221 November 19, 2025 Part III The President ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Executive Order 14359--Fostering the Future for American Children and Families Presidential Documents Federal Register / Vol. 90 , No. 221 / Wednesday, November 19, 2025 / Presidential Documents ___________________________________________________________________ Title 3-- The President [[Page 52227]] Executive Order 14359 of November 13, 2025 Fostering the Future for American Children and Families By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Purpose and Policy. My Administration is dedicated to empowering mothers and fathers to raise their children in safe and loving homes. When crises prevent such an arrangement, our Nation's foster care system must be ready to serve children in need. Today's foster care system must be improved in a number of important ways. Children often stay in foster care for years, and those who transition out due to...
Opening of the official text; read it in full in the Federal Register.
Constitution Index
“VFA Constitution grade”
Constitutionally sound
Graded 2026-10-08
SI-generated grade · five published checks · not individually reviewed by a person · methodology
Executive Order 14359 directs voluntary support, transparency, modernization, and faith-inclusive partnership within existing federally funded child-welfare programs. It asserts no new federal police power, restricts no Bill of Rights freedom, compels no individual conduct, preserves state operational control, and effects no taking or due-process deprivation.
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✓ Passes · Enumerated powers
The President acts under Article II, Section 1 vesting of executive power and Article II, Section 3 duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to administer existing federal child-welfare programs. Federal financial and technical support is grounded in Article I, Section 8, Clause 1, the Spending Clause authority to provide for the … -
✓ Passes · Bill of Rights
No provision restricts speech, press, assembly, arms, quartering, searches, trial rights, jury rights, or punishment. Section 4 protects First Amendment free exercise and bars exclusion of qualified foster and adoptive parents and organizations based on sincerely-held religious beliefs or moral convictions, which enforces rather than infringes the First Amendment. No establishment of religion occu… -
✓ Passes · Individual sovereignty
The order imposes no restraint on personal bodily autonomy, private property, speech, labor, belief, or family formation. It expands opportunities for youth in or aging out of foster care through education, employment, housing referrals, mentoring, vouchers, and scholarships, and it expands eligibility for faith-adhering families to serve as caregivers. The burden remains on the government to act … -
✓ Passes · Decentralization
Child protection for abused, neglected, and abandoned children cannot be handled by private families alone or by local communities alone without a state legal framework for custody, safety, and permanency. States operate foster care systems and remain the primary decision-makers here. This order does not federalize placement decisions, mandate placements, or preempt state licensing; it directs fed… -
✓ Passes · Due process and takings
The order creates no criminal penalty, civil forfeiture, search, seizure, detention, benefit termination, or property taking. Sections 2 and 3 direct data improvement, modernization of information systems, use of predictive analytics and tools powered by artificial intelligence for recruitment and matching, scorecards, resource platforms, and voucher flexibility. Section 5 expressly requires imple…
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