Shortly after Trump assumed office on Monday, he signed an executive order revoking dozens of his predecessor’s executive actions.
President Donald Trump rescinded more than 70 executive actions of his predecessor on his first day in office on Jan. 20, mere hours after the official swearing-in ceremony.
Trump announced earlier in the day that one of his first actions as the 47th president would be undoing much of the previous administration’s work, targeting former President Joe Biden’s executive orders (EOs) on policies related to COVID-19, immigration, the environment, gender and race, health care, and others.
Here are some of the most significant Biden-era executive actions that Trump revoked on his first day back in the White House.
Actions on COVID-19
Trump rescinded multiple executive orders Biden signed regarding the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including one that created a government-wide response to the pandemic to expand testing and vaccine distribution and another that developed a plan to conduct studies, large-scale trials, and novel therapies to combat the coronavirus.
Biden’s order providing financial relief to individuals, families, and small businesses, as well as to state, local, tribal, and territorial governments during the pandemic, was also rescinded by Trump.
Immigration and Border Security
Trump was quick to revoke many of Biden’s executive orders on immigration and border security after the latter did the same following his inauguration in early 2021.
One of the revoked orders established a federal coordinated effort to address the “Root Causes of Migration” from countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, while working with those countries to ramp up domestic development.
Notably, that order also expanded pathways for illegal immigrants to pursue asylum after crossing the border and revoked several of Trump’s previous executive orders, including the end of “catch and release” and a memorandum to secure the southern border.
Another order created humanitarian programs for refugee resettlement for illegal immigrants crossing the border through coordination with “private partners and American citizens in communities across the country.”
Climate and the Environment
Another key policy area that Trump’s revocation order addressed was climate initiatives, as Biden signed many sweeping executive actions on the environment while in office.
By Jacob Burg
