President Donald Trump’s first week back in office has been full of executive orders, firings, pardons, and other actions that will likely spur political pushback and legal challenges from opposition groups.
Trump has issued sweeping actions on illegal immigration, deploying the military to the southern border and ordering mass deportations nationwide.
He also moved to rename two large geographical landmarks; ended diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in federal agencies; proposed overhauling or eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA); and backed a plan to relocate thousands living in the Gaza Strip to “clean out” the territory.
Illegal Immigration
Trump had said on the 2024 campaign trail that he saw border security as a more pressing issue than inflation and the economy, and vowed to deploy the military to block illegal immigration.Many of his first executive orders this week cracked down on illegal immigration, as he declared a national border emergency, sent troops to the U.S.–Mexico border, ended birthright citizenship for children of non-citizens or those on temporary status, and eliminated the CBP One app for migrants seeking asylum in the United States.
Trump also plans to resume border wall construction and has invoked the Alien Enemies Act to stop “any invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States by a qualifying actor.”
Trump suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program until further refugee entry “aligns with the interests of the United States.”
Pardons and Firings
In keeping with one of many campaign promises, Trump pardoned roughly 1,500 people convicted for actions connected with the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach. Trump said he felt that many of the defendants were treated unfairly and given harsh punishments.“If they were non-violent, I think they’ve been greatly punished,” he said. “They’ve suffered greatly, and in many cases, they should not have suffered.”
During a Jan. 26 interview with CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he didn’t like the pardons, particularly for any who were violent.
“I’ve always said that I think when you pardon people who attack police officers, you’re sending the wrong signal to the public at large, and that’s not what you want to do to protect cops,” Graham said. “But [Trump] has that power.”
Ten of the pardoned individuals were convicted after an October 2020 demonstration at a Washington abortion clinic, where demonstrators linked themselves together with chains to bar entry into the clinic’s doors.
In addition to pardons, Trump also moved to put all federal DEI employees on paid leave as the agencies work to dismantle those programs, according to a memo from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
“At this point, we do not believe the actions taken are legally sufficient to dismiss Presidentially Appointed, Senate Confirmed Inspectors General,” Hannibal Ware, inspector general for the Small Business Administration, wrote in the letter to Gor, who had sent dismissal emails to several inspectors general, including Ware.
Trump defended the move while speaking with reporters on Air Force One on Jan. 25, calling it a “very common thing to do.”
“[I will] put good people in there that will be very good,” the president said.
Trump did not give Congress a legally required 30-day notice for the removals, which drew criticism from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
“There may be good reason the IGs were fired. We need to know that if so,” he said in a statement. “I’d like further explanation from President Trump. Regardless, the 30-day detailed notice of removal that the law demands was not provided to Congress.”
Name Changes, FEMA Overhaul
After Trump had floated changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and renaming the highest U.S. mountain, Alaska’s Denali, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced on Jan. 24 that it was formally implementing those alterations with the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.While Trump’s efforts to rename the Gulf of Mexico are unprecedented, the name of North America’s tallest peak has been in dispute for decades. After being referred to as Mount McKinley, named after President William McKinley, since the early 1900s, President Barack Obama signed a 2015 executive order renaming the peak as Denali, an Athabaskan word that means “the high one” or “the great one.”
Trump said he believes that states can more efficiently respond to natural disasters. “You want to use your state to fix it, and not waste time calling FEMA,” he said.
Trump also criticized the federal agency for reportedly avoiding homes with Trump signs last year.
The catastrophic Category 4 hurricane had been downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it reached North Carolina, but it still caused tens of billions of dollars in cumulative damage and killed more than 200 people across several states.
“I'll also be signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA, or maybe getting rid of FEMA,” Trump told reporters at a news conference in Fletcher, North Carolina.
Other Actions
One of Trump’s biggest actions on day one was reversing many policies and executive orders of his predecessor, President Joe Biden.He rescinded more than 70 of Biden’s executive actions, including policies related to COVID-19, immigration, the environment, gender and race, health care, and others.
The app went dark in the United States for roughly 14 hours after its divest-or-ban deadline on Jan. 19.
“That’s a big one,” Trump said while signing the order in the Oval Office. “A lot of people have been waiting for this for years, for decades. And everything will be revealed.”
The executive order gives the director of national intelligence and the attorney general 15 days to create a plan for the “full and complete release” of the JFK files and 45 days for the plans to release the RFK and King files.
“You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say, ‘You know, it’s over,’” Trump said.
