President Biden's Planned Executive Orders Start on Day One
By Rachel CurryJan. 20 2021, Updated 2:13 p.m. ET
With 51.3 percent of the popular vote in the 2020 presidential election, newly minted President Joe Biden claims the spot as the first president in U.S. history to achieve more than 80 million votes. Now that we have made it to inauguration day, Biden has made it clear that he isn't wasting any time.
While he has lofty goals to achieve throughout his tenure in the White House, some matters are more pressing. That's why Biden has planned numerous executive orders (17 of them, to be precise) to institute immediately.
Biden's planned executive orders related to economic policy
Many of Biden's initial executive orders are about rectifying what he sees as damage done during the Trump presidency. One of Trump's key elements of his initial campaign was the construction of a border wall, which Biden plans to terminate immediately. Reportedly, Trump spent a total of $15 billion on the border wall throughout his term.
Trump put a plan in place to institute an exclusion of non-citizens in the U.S. census and Biden will likely revoke that plan. As a result, the country and its states and regions will have accurate population counts to better allocate funding and serve constituents.
Eviction and foreclosure moratoriums have expired for people who have been impacted economically during the COVID-19 pandemic. Biden expects to retroactively extend the benefits through May 31.
Biden also supports Congress members who want to immediately cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for each debtor.
Other executive orders to expect from the Biden administration
Biden plans to use executive action to allow the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies to set immigration policies in the best interest of Americans. It's a detour from Trump's emphasis on aggressive immigration enforcement.
Jake Sullivan, a national security adviser for the White House, says that the Biden administration will approach regional migration differently and look for the root of the problem.
This is in sync with another executive action Biden is planning, which will set former President Obama's own Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in stone. Biden plans to effectively end the Muslim ban that impacts 14 countries. He will instruct the State Department to launch visa processing for those who have been affected.
With the COVID-19 pandemic being an ongoing issue in the nation, Biden will immediately rejoin the World Health Organization (WHO) and rebuild the pandemic unit at the White House, which Trump disbanded prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
If all goes according to Biden's plan, the U.S. will be back in good graces with the Paris Climate Accord, which Trump removed the nation from in 2020. This executive order is in addition to more than 100 Trump-era environmental rollbacks that Biden plans to reinstate in one sweeping executive order. Also, it looks like Biden will put a stop to the Keystone pipeline project.
Ethics and equity are at the core of Biden's executive orders
Racial equity, equality within other marginalized communities, and public trust of the government are all key aspects in Biden's decisions. If all of these executive orders go through, Biden may just achieve the most productive first day of work ever.
