Here’s the rundown of the actions Trump took in his first hours. 

IMMIGRATION

• An executive order on securing the border. Read it here. 

This order is meant to reverse Biden administration border policies by ending what Trump has described as “catch and release.” The order also restarts the “Remain in Mexico” policy Trump implemented in his first term and directs further construction of a wall on the southern border.

The order also immediately ended the use of the CBP One app’s immigration functions. The phone app was expanded by the Biden administration to allow more than 730,000 non-citizens to fly into the country from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, as well as apply for appointments at ports of entry.

It also provides for collect DNA from illegal immigrants in custody, as well as to determine if migrants are related and family members and prosecute adults who are not related to children they claim to be related to. 

• An executive order empowering agencies to remove illegal immigrants. Read the order here.

This order revokes Biden administration orders on handling migrants who cross the southern border and might claim asylum. It instead orders agencies to execute laws allowing for the removal of inadmissible migrants.

A Trump official described it as equipping agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection with the authorities needed to deport illegal immigrants.

It also establishes federal Homeland Security Task Forces to cooperate with state and local law enforcement in the removal of gangs and criminals from the U.S.

• A declaration of an emergency at the southern border. Read it here. 

This action will allow the Department of Defense to deploy active-duty and National Guard military to the southern border, erect barriers, and work on ways to take down enemy drones.

• An executive order “Clarifying the military’s role in protecting the territorial integrity of the United States.” Read it here. 

This order assigns the military the mission of sealing the border, and institutes campaign planning requirements. 

• An executive order designating cartels as terrorists. Read it here. 

This order declares an emergency under national security law to designate cartels as terrorist groups. It also does the same for the gangs Tren de Aragua (TdA) and La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). It will allow Trump to invoke the Alien Enemies Act against cartels and gangs. 

• An executive order pausing refugee admissions. Read it here. 

This order suspends refugee resettlement for at least four months. 

• An executive order ending birthright citizenship. Read it here.

This order is meant to deny citizenship based on being born in the U.S. Democratic states and the American Civil Liberties Union sued almost immediately to stop the order. 

• An executive order on screening and vetting migrants. Read it here. 

This order directs agencies to improve the screening and vetting of migrants on the grounds of preventing terrorism and crime. 

• A proclamation guaranteeing the states protection against invasion. Read it here.

This proclamation establishes that the situation at the southern border qualifies as an invasion under Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution.

• An executive order restoring the death penalty. Read it here.

This order restores use of the death penalty. It had been paused under Biden. It directs the attorney general to pursue capital punishment for the murder of law enforcement officers and capital crimes committed by illegal aliens

• An executive order pausing foreign aid. Read it here: 

This order pauses foreign aid for 90 days to make sure it aligns with Trump’s foreign policy. 

ECONOMICS

• A memorandum requiring a return to work for federal workers. Read it here. 

This memo ends working from home for federal employees and requires a return to work in offices as “soon as practicable.” It allows exemptions based on the judgement of agency leaders. 

• A memorandum imposing a regulatory freeze. Read it here. 

This memo halts all agency rules until a Trump official can review them. It also directs agencies to consider delaying rules already put in place. 

• A memorandum imposing a hiring freeze. Read it here. 

This memo freezes hiring for federal positions. It does not apply to military, immigration enforcement, or public safety, and allows for exemptions determined by the director of the Office of Management and Budget. 

It also requires a report within 90 days from the OMB on reducing the workforce, and bans the use of contractors to circumvent the freeze. 

Trump also imposed a hiring freeze in his first term. 

• An executive order giving Trump more power over career federal workers, previously known as “Schedule F.” Read it here. 

This order restates an order issued in the last days of the previous Trump administration, and subsequently undone by Biden, that would create a new class of career federal workers that could be removed based on policy considerations. Previously, they would have been labeled “Schedule F” employees. This order would categorize them as “policy/career” employees. 

The order is meant to make government employees more responsive to the president and to prevent what Trump has termed “the deep state” from obstructing his agenda. Critics have argued that it would undermine the quality of the bureaucracy. 

• A memorandum on inflation. Read it here. 

This memo directs agencies to take actions that would lower the cost of housing and expand housing supply, cut “counterproductive” requirements that raise the costs of home appliances, slash “unnecessary” administrative expenses that raise healthcare costs, and create employment opportunities for American workers, among other broad directives.

• A memorandum establishing an “America First” trade policy. Read it here. 

This memo establishes Trump’s trade policy, but stops short of starting the process of implementing new tariffs, as he has promised. Instead, it directs officials to pursue an “America first” trade policy. 

It also calls for a review of certain critical and controversial trade policies, including the China trade deal Trump signed in his first term and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement he negotiated. 

It also calls for a review of the “de minimis” rule that allows for imports of less than $800 to be duty-free. The order notes that the exception could be used to bring in counterfeits or drugs. 

The order also asks the Treasury Secretary and other members of the administration to consider the feasibility of the External Revenue Service, the agency Trump has proposed to collect tariff revenues. Today, such revenues are collected by Customs and Border Protection.

• A memorandum exiting the global minimum deal. Read it here.

This memo withdraws the U.S. from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s global tax deal, which was pursued by Biden Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to impose a global minimum tax of 15% on businesses. Republicans have long opposed the effort. 

• A memorandum on career senior executives. Read it here.  

This memo requires performance plans for Career Senior Executive Service officials, who are high-level government administrators who manage major programs within agencies, and often interact between agency officials appointed by presidents and career employees. 

• An executive order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Read it here. 

This order relates to the DOGE, touted by Trump and Elon Musk. 

The DOGE will be extremely limited in terms of its official government footprint, according to the order. Basically, it will rename the United States Digital Service (USDS), a small organization founded by the Obama administration to aid agencies with tech services, to be the United States DOGE Service (also USDS). 

It also creates a temporary organization within the USDS to carry out the DOGE agenda in the next 18 months, permitting it to establish small teams in each agency.

Musk and other Trump allies associated with DOGE have always said that the DOGE primarily will be outside the government and that its actual government authority will be limited. 

ANTI-DEI

• An executive order rescinding Biden actions on DEI and environmental justice. Read it here.   

This is a far-reaching executive order billed as rooting out Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives undertaken by the Biden administration. Trump officials framed it as a move to restore equal treatment and uphold the vision of civil rights leaders by focusing on character rather than race, sex, or other identity-based characteristics. It creates a process to “end Federal implementation of unlawful and radical DEI ideology.”

It also reverses 78 orders and memos promulgated by Biden. Many of the orders had to do with DEI and related topics, such as LGBT issues and “environmental justice.” 

Others, though, had little to do with DEI. For example, the Trump order reverses the Biden administration order on artificial intelligence, which many in Silicon Valley had said was too onerous. It also undoes the ethics rules imposed by Biden on the executive branch. 

In short, the order is a massive change in administrative policy on a host of topics. 

• An executive order ending DEI programs and preferences. Read it here. 

This order is meant to terminate all DEI programs and environmental justice programs. Any positions associated with those programs are also meant to be eliminated where possible, or redirected to non-DEI purposes. 

• An executive order reforming federal hiring. Read it here. 

This order requires a new federal hiring plan that prevents hiring based on “race, sex, or religion, and prevent the hiring of individuals who are unwilling to defend the Constitution or to faithfully serve the Executive Branch.”

• An executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico, Denali, and other important sites. Read it here. 

This order renames Denali, the tallest mountain in North America, as Mount McKinley. It had been named Mount McKinley from 1917 until 2015, when the Department of Interior changed it in accordance with Alaska natives’ wishes.

The order also renames the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. 

It sets up a process to review appointments to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names

• An executive order defining sex as based on biology. Read it here.  

This order defines “sex” in federal policy as based on biology, not gender identity, a reversal of Biden administration policies. 

Notably, it defines “memale” as “a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.” It defines “male” as “a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.”

All agencies are supposed to use these definitions in interpreting laws and in documents, and must get rid of all language pertaining to gender identity. 

The order also provides that passports and government personnel documents will only allow for the options of two sexes, male or female. 

It also calls on the attorney general to reverse the Biden administration’s interpretation of the 2020 Supreme Court ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, which found gender identity is a protected category under employment discrimination law. The Biden administration sought to applying that ruling to other areas of law, such as in education. 

The order also directs federal agencies to ensure that biological males are not included in women’s spaces, such as in prisons or in public housing. 

ANTI-“WEAPONIZATION” OF THE GOVERNMENT

• An order ending the “weaponization” of the federal government. Read it here. 

This order finds that the Biden administration used federal agencies and the intelligence community to punish political opponents. 

It requires a report from the Attorney General on any abuse of government power in the past four years. It also mandates a similar report from the Director of National Intelligence on the intelligence community. 

• An order against federal censorship. Read it here. 

This order finds that the government infringed speech rights under the guise of combatting “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation.” It’s a response, in particular, to the content moderation practices of Big Tech companies in recent years, as platforms limited controversial content related to the pandemic, race, gender, and more.

The order mandates a report from the Attorney General on any censorship done by the government in the past four years.

• A proclamation pardoning and commuting sentences for Jan. 6 offenders. Read it here. 

This proclamation grants pardons and commutations to all of the defendants convicted over the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, marking one of the most expansive clemency announcements in history.

• An executive order suspending the security clearances of 51 ex-intelligence officials. Read it here. 

This order suspends the security clearances of dozens of former intelligence community officials who wrote an infamous letter about Hunter Biden ahead of the 2020 election. Among the letter’s signatories were three former CIA directors, including John Brennan, as well as former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

• A memorandum giving Trump officials security clearances. Read it here. 

This memo grants immediate security clearances for Trump personnel. 

ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT

• An executive order “unleashing American energy.” Read it here. 

This major order is meant to undo many of rules put in place by the Biden administration to promote clean energy, limit carbon emissions, increase efficiency rules for appliances, and boost EVs. 

It sets up reviews by agencies to find ways to undo clean energy rules and promote energy production. 

It undoes a dozen Biden climate-related orders, and terminates the American Climate Corps started by Biden. 

It orders the Council on Environmental Quality to speed up permitting under the National Environmental Policy Act, the bedrock environmental law that requires environmental reviews of projects. It also orders other agencies to put forward recommendations to Congress for overhauling permitting laws.

It limits agency environmental reviews to just what is required by the underlying laws. Specifically, it undoes Biden administration’s “social cost of carbon” calculation, which was used to guide the cost-benefit analyses of various federal rules. 

The order also ends the pause on approvals of new exports of liquefied natural gas put in place by the Biden Energy Department. 

The rule also calls for accelerating mining for critical minerals. 

• An executive order declaring a national energy emergency. Read it here. 

This order directs agencies ordered to find ways they can use emergency powers to produce energy and build energy infrastructure. 

Among other provisions, it asks the EPA to consider allowing year-round sales of gasoline with a higher blend of ethanol, known as E15. 

• An order withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate. Read the order here. 

This order withdraws the U.S., again, from the Paris Agreement, the 2016 agreement by countries to aim to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The order tells agencies to undo any policies they put in place to work toward the goal. 

Trump had previously withdrawn from the agreement in 2016, and then Biden had rejoined it. 

• A memorandum halting wind projects on federal lands. Read it here. 

This memo blocks all lease sales for offshore wind projects and pauses any new approvals, permits, leases, or loans for wind projects both on and offshore. It follows Trump’s campaign pledges to stop the construction of wind turbines. 

• A memorandum on water use in California. Read it here. 

This order directs relevant agencies to route more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to other parts of the state. Its responsive to Trump’s feud with Gov. Gavin Newsom about his management of water in the state. Trump has criticized Newsom’s administration for opposing his water management plans on the grounds of protecting the Delta smelt, an endangered species of fish. 

• An executive order promoting fossil fuel production in Alaska. Read the order here. 

This order is meant to unleash all of Alaska’s “natural resource potential,” including timber, seafood, and critical minerals. It specifically supports projects exporting LNG from the state, prioritizing any necessary permitting and pipeline construction to transport LNG to the U.S. and abroad. 

The order also calls on the U.S. to “fully avail” itself of Alaska’s lands and resources, maximize the development of natural resources, and expedite permitting and leasing for energy projects in the state. Trump’s action additionally withdraws a number of Biden administration policies related to the region, including its cancellation of any leases within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

NATIONAL SECURITY/FOREIGN POLICY

• An executive order giving TikTok 75 days of life. Read it here. 

This order extends the deadline for compliance with the TikTok divestment law, a move that effectively halts the app’s shutdown in the United States for 75 days.

The law, which went into effect Sunday, is meant to sever ties between the Chinese-owned platform and its parent company, ByteDance, over national security concerns. The new executive order seeks to address the “unfortunate timing” of the law going into effect one day before Trump took office, which was also the deadline to find a U.S. buyer for the Chinese-owned social media app.

• An executive order withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization. Read it here. 

This order withdraws the U.S. from the WHO. Trump had sought to exit the organization in his first term over its handling of the pandemic and its investigation into the outbreak of COVID-19 in China. But Biden reversed that effort. 

The order tasks the Secretary of State and OMB director with finding alternatives to the WHO for coordinating among countries. 

• An executive order telling the Secretary of State to pursue “America First.” Read it here. 

This order directs the Secretary of State to provide guidance on an “America First Policy” that will “champion core American interests and always put America and American citizens first.”

FEDERAL BUILDINGS

• A memorandum promoting beautiful federal architecture. Read it here. 

This order requires the administrator of the General Services Administration to produce recommendations for policies to ensure that federal buildings are “visually identifiable as civic buildings and respect regional, traditional, and classical architectural heritage in order to uplift and beautify public spaces and ennoble the United States and our system of self-government.”

The order continues a quest Trump began during his first term to ensure new federal buildings are not just functional but also follow a traditional style of architecture. The president and others have expressed their dissatisfaction with some modernist architecture.