Making good on his promise to undo Donald Trump’s harmful policies, United States (US) President Joe Biden on Wednesday reversed a series of executive actions taken by his predecessor that blocked legal immigrants from entering the country, sought to cut financial assistance to cities the former president considered “anarchist” and “lawless,” and mandated that federal buildings should be designed in a classical aesthetic.
Biden revoked ‘Proclamation 10014’ relating to the ban on immigration under Trump, saying it “does not advance the interests of the United States.” The former president had claimed that the way to protect the American economy and jobs during the coronavirus crisis was to completely isolate the country from the rest of the world. However, Biden challenged those claims on Wednesday and said that such measures in fact hurt US interests “including by preventing certain family members of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents from joining their families here. It also harms industries in the United States that utilize talent from around the world.” Addressing Trump’s order to pause the issuance of green cards, Biden further stressed that the “unrestricted entry” to the US of persons holding such documents was “not detrimental” to the country.
The president also reversed a September 2020 ‘Memorandum on Reviewing Funding to State and Local Government Recipients That Are Permitting Anarchy, Violence, and Destruction in American Cities’ issued by the previous administration which threatened to cut congressionally appropriated federal funds to Democratic-led cities that Trump deemed “lawless” and “anarchist jurisdictions.” The former president named cities like Portland, Seattle and New York as those that could be defunded in the document, which came in the aftermath of nationwide protests over George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police in May 2020. In response to the memo, the cities in question then filed a lawsuit to invalidate the designation and fight back against the Trump administration’s efforts to withhold federal money from them. Pete Holmes, the city attorney of Seattle, welcomed the Biden revocation, said that he was “glad to have this nonsense cleared from the decks”.
Additionally, Biden repealed Trump’s “Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture” executive order, which mandated the return to a more classical style of architecture as seen in buildings such as the White House, the US Capitol, the US Supreme Court, and Lincoln Memorial.
For all of these executive actions, Biden’s order instructs the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and any related departments and agencies to “promptly consider taking steps to rescind any orders, rules, regulations, guidelines, or policies, or portions thereof” that would have implemented Trump’s actions. The text also calls for any “personnel positions, committees, task forces, or other entities established” to be abolished, as “appropriate and consistent with applicable law”.
Biden Reverses Trump Executive Orders on Immigration, Architecture, and ‘Anarchist’ Cities
The president has directed federal agencies to rescind any policies, regulations, personnel positions, or committees that would have implemented Trump’s actions.
February 26, 2021
SOURCE: THE WHITE HOUSE