The newly elected President Joe Biden has been busy as of late establishing his executive orders and overturning many of former President Donald Trump’s policies. In fact in his first few hours as President on Wednesday January 20th 2021, Biden signed over a dozen of the twenty-eight executive orders he had planned to enact with almost certainly more planned in the future. That is almost as many executive orders signed by Franklin Roosevelt in his first month, which was exactly thirty. His aggressive issuing and signing of these executive orders has been criticized by many, including Republicans, media outlets, and even those of his own Democratic party. Those against Biden and his signing of executive orders have stated that he is abusing his power as the president and betraying his pledge to the nation to establish a sense of unity. Biden and his supporters have ignored these accusations however, opting to cheer for the reversal of Trump’s policies and establishment of new executive orders.
Biden at the time of writing this article has already established twenty-eight executive orders, some of which are of extreme importance and could affect the entire nation for years to come. One of the first major executive orders Biden had signed was one which halted construction on the border wall that former President Donald Trump had wanted to be finished built and repaired where there was any structural damage. Another early executive order Biden signed also dealt with immigration policy as it reversed restrictions on US entry for people from several Muslim-countries. These executive orders have been praised by Democrats as it welcomes immigrants into the country and will allow them to contribute to the nation whether it be in getting a job, bringing their culture, or doing some other benefit. There are many critics of these immigration policies, because they state that the mass immigration of people from all of these countries could not only cause a massive outbreak of the Coronavirus in the United States once again, but it allows for more illegal immigrants to travel into the country who in turn could commit many crimes while being able to easily get away with them.
President Biden also signed into law many economic and environmental executive orders, one of those major ones being the decision to cancel the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. While this order was championed by environmental activists, those working on the pipeline are now without work and some even became unemployed due to this action taken by President Biden. The President also established another environmentally focused executive order which would involve the U.S rejoining the Paris climate accord. Democrats and climate supporters cheered as they believed rejoining the accord would cut back on climate change and possibly create new ways to prevent the further increase of global warming. Republican critics once again spoke out against this executive order explaining that the reason former President Donald Trump had the U.S exit the agreement was because it would cause many jobs to be lost and harm America’s economy, yet despite these warnings current President Biden went ahead with rejoining the accord anyway with aims to aid the climate. Whether or not these executive orders benefit the country or detriment it will remain to be seen over the course of Biden’s presidency.
