BY BELLA TRINKO AND ALAINA INOUYE, STAFF WRITERS
America’s new president had quite a busy first day, signing over a dozen executive orders. While many of these orders were reversals of Tr*mp’s policies, those and many others of his orders gave a glimpse into what his priorities include and what the next four years will look like. Let’s take a look at an overview of the monumental changes that occurred that day.
Some focused on combating Covid i.e,
Executive Order #1: Require masks on federal property,
#2: Rejoin the WHO(World Health Organization) and,
#3: create a Covid office that reports directly to Biden.
Covid relief was also on the agenda;
#4:Extend foreclosure and eviction moratoriums, and
#5:freeze student debt.
LGBTQIA+ rights and Climate and Racial Justice were important factors as well;
Executive Order #6: Rejoin the Paris climate accords,
#7: Revoke the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline(the pipeline was extremely damaging to the environment)and cancel other Tr*mp administration energy rules.
#8:Say goodbye to the 1776 commission. The commission was focused on teaching a more conservative history curriculum in U.S. schools.
#15: Ban workplace discrimination against LGBTQIA+ employees
Let’s not forget about Immigration and changes in the government.
Executive Order #9: Undo Tr*ump’s actions to exclude undocumented immigrants from the U.S. census, thus making the representation less accurate for more diverse locations.
#10:Strengthen protections for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals(DACA)after the Tr*ump administration’s attempts to abolish it.
#11:Abolish the “Muslim Ban”.The order also takes action to restart visa processing for the countries affected by the ban.
#12: Reverse Tr*umps’ order that heavily enlarged immigration officials’ interior enforcement and widened the options of who they can try to detain and deport.
#13: End Tr*ump’s national emergency declaration that was used to redirect federal funding to build the border wall between Mexico and the U.S.
#14:Extending the Deferred Enforced Departure(DED)designation for Liberians who have been in the U.S for many years.
#16:Ordered that every appointee in the executive branch(himself included) must sign an ethics pledge.
#17: An order was signed that will stop all Trump administration regulations currently in process until further review.
Biden has accomplished all these things on his first day; we look forward to all that he will do in the future.
Sources:
*https://news.stanford.edu/2021/01/21/president-bidens-busy-first-day/