A Summary of Trump’s Biggest Day One Executive Actions

After his triumphant return to the White House on Monday, Donald Trump and his new administration have wasted no time in pursuing their political objectives for his first term. The President signed a slate of executive orders and memoranda, laying the foundation for his second term in office.

Of the 26 executive orders the president signed Monday, six dealt with immigration and border security, a key theme during the 2024 presidential campaign and a central part of Trump’s political platform.

A brief summary of the contents of each executive order follows.

PROTECTING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AGAINST INVASION

This lengthy order instructs the federal government to faithfully execute immigration laws against illegal immigrants and revokes a number of executive orders, rules, and policies enacted under the Biden administration that constrained the detention, prosecution and deportation of illegal aliens. It also establishes special task forces under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to dismantle cartels, human trafficking rings, and other organized crime conducted across the border. It instructs DHS to enact policies to encourage voluntary remigration of illegal immigrants, construct additional detention facilities for illegal immigrants, and to cooperate with state and local governments in the enforcement of immigration law, and includes an authorization for state and local officials to enforce federal immigration law. Finally, the order instructs the federal government to take necessary lawful action necessary to ensure compliance from foreign countries or American jurisdictions (including “sanctuary cities”) that attempt to obstruct the enforcement of U.S. immigration law.

SECURING OUR BORDERS

This order declares the intention of the U.S. government to take all appropriate actions necessary to secure the borders of the United States. It instructs the appropriate federal agencies to take a number of measures to this end, including erecting physical barriers along the southern border, deploying sufficient border control personnel to “ensure complete operational control,” reestablishing the “Remain in Mexico” policy for asylum applications, and terminating the Biden administration’s parole policies that released illegal immigrants intercepted at the border into the territory of the United States.

PROTECTING THE UNITED STATES FROM FOREIGN TERRORISTS AND OTHER NATIONAL SECURITY AND PUBLIC SAFETY THREATS

This order requires the relevant executive agencies to reform their vetting procedures for visa and asylum applicants to ensure that terrorists and hostile foreign nationals are not admitted to the United States. It also instructs them to ensure that Americans are protected from foreign actors who seek to undermine the constitutional rights of American citizens, including freedom of speech, and to recommend policies that promote assimilation to “a unified American identity and attachment to the Constitution, laws, and founding principles of the United States.”

REALIGNING THE UNITED STATES REFUGEE ADMISSIONS PROGRAM

This order suspends effective immediately the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) and instructs the Secretary of Homeland Security to suspend applications for refugee status until a report has been presented analyzing whether further admission of refugees into the country under USRAP is in the best interests of the United States. It also declares as official national policy “to admit only those refugees who can fully and appropriately assimilate into the United States.”

PROTECTING THE MEANING AND VALUE OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP

This order alters the federal definition of citizenship, excluding children born to mothers who are in the U.S. illegally and whose fathers are not American citizens or permanent residents as well as children born to mothers who are in the U.S. legally but on a temporary basis, such as a student or work visa, and whose fathers are not American citizens or permanent residents.

DESIGNATING CARTELS AND OTHER ORGANIZATIONS AS FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS AND SPECIALLY DESIGNATED GLOBAL TERRORISTS

This order officially designates cartels and similar cross-border institutions of organized crime as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and/or Specially Designated Global Terrorists.

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