Underway

Updated:

1/30/25

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This order suspends all refugee entries indefinitely, starting on Jan. 27, 2025.

Starting on Jan. 27, 2025, all refugee entries into the U.S. under the auspices of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) will be suspended indefinitely until President Trump decides to resume them. The Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) must submit a report to the president within 90 days, and then every 90 days thereafter, analyzing whether resumption of the USRAP would be in line with the priorities outlined in the order. Given how those priorities are set out, a recommendation to resume the program would be highly unlikely. Refugees can be admitted on a case-by-case basis, if the Secretaries of State and DHS jointly determine it is in the national interest and doesn't pose a threat. Finally, DHS and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are directed to examine whether states and localities can play a larger role in determining where refugees are placed; this emboldens an anti-immigrant argument that states and localities should have essentially veto power over the placement of refugees in their communities.

This DHS directive will allow ICE enforcement in places previously deemed off-limits, including churches and houses of worship, hospitals, schools, playgrounds, and courthouses.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has rescinded a Biden Administration policy — which expanded upon a policy in place since at least 1993 — restricting immigration enforcement at or near certain designated areas, previously known as "protected areas" or "sensitive locations." DHS has issued a yet-unreleased directive allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to conduct immigration enforcement at these key locations using only their "common sense." The previously protected locations included churches and other houses of worship, hospitals and health clinics, schools, playgrounds, social services providers (including shelters and food pantries), disaster and emergency response sites, weddings, funerals, religious ceremonies, parades, demonstrations, and rallies. DHS is still constrained by the Fourth Amendment and cannot enter private residences or private property that is not open to the public without a judicial warrant (signed by a judge), but this new directive gives them much wider latitude to conduct immigration enforcement in public at locations core to civic life, education, freedom of religion, and public heath.

Underway

Updated:

1/30/25

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This order directs political appointees and the DOGE to create a hiring plan that would further undermine career public servants and their ability to serve the American people.

This order begins by repeating falsehoods about federal hiring, including claims that it is driven by illegal, discriminatory preferences, rather than the merit system it is actually based on. It then uses that false premise to order political loyalists — including the yet-unnamed leader of the DOGE — to create a federal hiring plan accordingly. The order may increase, rather than decrease, hiring discrimination by assessing candidates based on easily manipulated attributes like faithfulness to the Executive Branch — rather than the country or our Constitution.

Underway

Updated:

1/30/25

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This order calls for greater use of the death penalty, particularly for crimes by immigrants or against law enforcement officers.

This order ends Biden's federal moratorium on the use of the death penalty. It directs the Attorney General to pursue the death penalty in all cases where possible, particularly in cases involving capital crimes committed by undocumented immigrants or the murder of a law enforcement officer. The Attorney General must also encourage state attorneys general to pursue the death penalty; make sure that the 37 people whose death sentences Biden commuted have horrific prison conditions; and, work to overrule Supreme Court precedents limiting officials' abilities to pursue capital punishment.

Underway

Updated:

1/30/25

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This order requires a pause and review of certain foreign development assistance.

This order requires a 90-day pause and review of foreign development assistance to purportedly evaluate if such assistance is consistent with U.S. foreign policy. The impact of this order is not immediately clear and it may be limited by the language of the EO that may restrict its effect to new obligations and disbursements. However, regardless of its immediate impact, this order — like others that purport to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Paris Climate Agreement — does serious damage to our country's credibility, undermines international alliances and partnerships, and allows countries like China and Russia to fill the void created by our withdrawal from the world stage.

Challenged

Updated:

1/30/25

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This order seeks to severely narrow government protections and support for transgender, intersex, and nonbinary individuals.

Relying on false claims that attempt to divide communities, this order claims to change the policy of the United States to recognize only two genders (male and female), and attempts to redefine those and other terms throughout federal law to comport with this harmful worldview. It also orders the Attorney General to issue guidance to circumvent Supreme Court case law that supports transgender protections and orders several agencies to investigate people deemed to have prevented others from expressing the administration's dangerous views. This order squarely targets transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people for discrimination.