Joe Biden took charge as the 46th president of the United States on January 20 and immediately began unwinding his predecessor Donald Trump’s policies on immigration, climate change, racial equity, COVID-19 pandemic response, work on a border wall with Mexico, travel ban, and other issues.
The moment Biden entered the White House, he signed 17 executive orders, memorandums, and proclamations from the Oval Office, reported The New York Times.
Among the steps that President Biden took on his first day in office were ordered to rejoin the Paris climate accord and end Trump’s travel ban on predominantly Muslim and African countries said the report.
Six of Biden’s 17 orders, memorandums, and proclamations deal with immigration.
He ordered efforts to preserve Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program known as DACA that has shielded hundreds of thousands of people who came to the US as children from deportation since it was introduced in 2012. He also extended temporary legal status to Liberians who fled the civil war and the Ebola outbreak to June 2022.
Biden’s actions targeted at what the president views as “specific, egregious abuses by Trump during four tumultuous years,” it said.
The orders, of the newly-elected president, were intended to be a “hefty and visible down payment” on his goal to “reverse the gravest damages” done to the country by Trump, the report said.
In his inaugural address, Biden said, “We’ll press forward with speed and urgency, for we have much to do in this winter of peril and significant possibilities.”
“Much to repair. Much to restore. Much to heal. Much to build, and much to gain,” Biden added