Biden enacts executive orders

On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed 17 executive orders. The orders targeted several key areas he focused on during his campaign including climate change, immigration and the pandemic.

One of Biden’s executive orders appointed Jeffrey D. Zients, former head of the Obama administration’s National Economic Council, as the official COVID-19 response coordinator. The order also restored the directorate for global health security and biodefense at the National Security Council, which was dissolved under the Trump administration in 2018.

Another order makes social distancing and masks required on all federal property for all federal employees. The order is not a national mask mandate, but Biden is starting a “100 days masking challenge” to encourage Americans to wear masks. The challenge also hopes to inspire state and local officials to implement public measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Biden also reinstated ties with the World Health Organization (WHO), with Dr. Anthony Fauci acting as head of the U.S. delegation on the WHO’s executive board. Former-president Trump chose to withdraw the nation’s membership and funding last year.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was also revamped by executive order. The program seeks to protect the children of illegal immigrants from threats of deportation. The same order also requests that Congress enact legislation to provide permanent legal status and a path to citizenship for those same immigrants.

Trump’s plan to exclude non-citizens from the census count was revoked by executive order as well. A previous executive order by Trump that pushed for aggressive deportation efforts was also overturned by Biden. The deportation of Liberians living in the U.S. has been blocked and the “Muslim ban” was ended too. The latter order had blocked travel into the U.S. from several Middle Eastern and African countries with heavy Muslim populations. Construction of the border wall has been halted and the same order also calls for the “immediate termination” of the national emergency declaration that gave Trump access to billions of dollars for the construction of the wall.

Several of Trump’s environmental policies have been reversed by the Biden administration as well. The United States will rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement on Friday, Feb. 19. The U.S. removed itself from the treaty in 2019. The permit for the Keystone XL pipeline has been revoked and rollbacks to vehicle emissions standards have been reversed. Decisions to slash the size of several national monument areas have been undone as well. A temporary moratorium has been placed on oil and natural gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Other Biden policies address government accountability, the economy and racial and LGBTQ+ equality. In the coming months, Biden will continue attempts to set his agenda in place.