Hours after his inauguration, President Biden signed a combination of executive orders, memoranda, and directives to deliver immediate relief to the nation. Biden signed 17 executive orders on his first day in office in an attempt to dismantle the damage done by the Trump administration, from dismissing the former president’s response to the pandemic and climate change, providing economic relief to families, and terminating Trump’s anti-immigration policies.
Let us summarize some of them.
President Biden has set in motion a “100 days masking challenge,” which is meant to convince Americans to wear a mask for up to 100 days to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Biden has also issued an executive order that mandates social distancing and masks on all federal properties and by all federal employees. The Trump administration failed to respond sensibly to the severity of the virus, resulting in the confirmed death toll of more than 400,000 and more than 25 million cases in the United States.
President Biden has signed an order to re-enter the Paris climate accords, which Trump pulled the United States out of after rolling back on 125 environmental and climate policies. In 2019, Trump formally withdrew the United States from the accords. Biden has also withdrawn the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, re-established the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (GHG), and ordered agencies to revise the vehicle fuel economy and emissions standards.
The Trump administration instituted many anti-immigration policies, but President Biden has directed the immediate termination of border construction, repealed a Trump executive order that directed extreme immigration enforcement and deportation, and has terminated the so-called Muslim-ban, which prevented travel to the United States from predominantly Muslim nations. Biden also reinforced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that protects the deportation of immigrants brought to the United States as children. Former President Trump fought his entire term to end the DACA program.
The Biden administration’s actions and virtues contrast those of the Trump administration, and Americans can only expect Biden to maintain his promise of unity and compromise. I, as I am sure others have, voted for President Biden in the November election, not because he is a man that we deem the perfect candidate, but because the nation would further fall because of another Trump term. Both President Biden and Vice President Harris are far from ideal presidential and vice-presidential candidates, but they have the influence to thrust the United States onto the path to securing environmental, economic, and racial justice.