Biden Will Aggressively Reverse Trump Policies, Restore Obama-era Programs On First Day

President-elect Joe Biden will sign 17 executive actions and orders in the first hours of his presidency on Wednesday.

The moves are expected to restore a number of Obama-era policies and reverse some of what the Biden team calls “the gravest damages” of the Trump administration.

Biden is expected to sign the executive actions from the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon after the inauguration, which is set to lay out a “forward-looking” vision for his presidency.

“He wants to roll up his sleeves and get to work as quickly as possible,” incoming White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, adding that some of that work will be to overturn the actions of his predecessor, President Trump, to fulfill Biden’s goals of “moving the country forward.”

In his first actions as president, Biden is set to roll back and reverse a number of Trump’s policies and directives. 

End of the wall

Biden will declare an “immediate termination” of funding for the border wall construction — putting an end to a key Trump campaign and administration promise to “build a wall” along the U.S.-Mexico border. The move will direct an “immediate pause” in wall construction and will “determine the best way to redirect funds that were diverted by the prior administration to fund wall construction.”

Biden will also sign an executive order that revoking Trump’s previous order that directed aggressive immigration enforcement. The Biden team said that the move will allow for the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies to set “civil immigration enforcement policies that best protect the American people” and that are “in line with our values and priorities.”

“The Biden administration is going to have a very different approach to regional migration,” incoming White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said, adding that there will be a “special emphasis” to address the “root causes of migration in the region.”

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