Policies & Analysis

Underway

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These pardons grant clemency to 23 people convicted of threatening reproductive rights by violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

The FACE Act, which became law in 1994, was designed to protect clinics that provide abortion, as well as the people seeking care, from violence. President Trump and other far-right groups have characterized the Biden administration's enforcement of the law as another example of a "weaponized" Justice Department. These pardons advance that narrative and undermine federal support for reproductive rights.

This new EO promotes the untested cryptocurrency industry through a variety of mechanisms.

This new EO promotes the cryptocurrency industry through a variety of mechanisms, including by revoking President Biden's EO entitled "Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets" and by establishing a new cryptocurrency working group chaired by David Sacks, which will, among other things, consider the potential creation and maintenance of a national digital asset stockpile. Much is still unclear about the cryptocurrency industry and blockchain technology, but there are serious downsides associated with both, from the environmental impacts of bitcoin mining, to the potential for cryptocurrency to be used to launder money, to the highly volatile and uncertain nature of cryptocurrency investments.

This order seeks to fully declassify records related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

This memo orders the public release of all records related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. — all killed while playing leading roles in the civil rights movement. President Trump has ordered agency heads to present plans for full declassification of remaining secret records. Members of the Kennedy family have called the order a political stunt. The King family has asked to review the records before full declassification.

This order directs the Secretary of the Interior to submit a plan for full Federal recognition of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina.

This order directs the Secretary of the Interior to evaluate options for full Federal recognition of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina and create a plan to assist in that effort. The Lumbee Tribe is currently recognized by the state of North Carolina, but does not receive the funding that Federal recognition would bring. Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump promised to push for recognition during their presidential campaigns.

Underway

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This order grants a full pardon to DC police lieutenant Andrew Zabavsky, despite a jury finding him guilty of murder and obstruction of justice in the death of Karon Hylton-Brown.

D.C. police lieutenant Andrew Zabavsky was convicted by a jury of his peers of conspiracy and obstruction of justice in the death of 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown in 2020. Hylton-Brown had a three-month old daughter at the time he was killed, following an unauthorized pursuit by Zabavsky's partner Terrence Sutton. After Hylton-Brown was struck by another motorist, the officers extensively covered up the crime, including shutting off their body worn cameras at key moments. President Trump justified the pardon with the false and irrelevant claim that Hylton-Brown was "an illegal."

Underway

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This order grants a full pardon to D.C. police officer Terence Sutton for murder and obstruction of justice in the death of Karon Hylton-Brown.

D.C. police officer Terence Sutton was convicted by a jury of his peers of second-degree murder, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice in the death of 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown in 2020. Karon had a three-month old daughter at the time he was killed, following an unauthorized pursuit by Sutton. After Hylton-Brown was struck by another motorist, the officers extensively covered up the crime, including shutting off their body worn cameras at key moments. President Trump justified the pardon with the false and irrelevant claim that Hylton-Brown was "an illegal."

This memo directs federal agencies to immediately close all of their diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility offices and put their employees on paid administrative leave.

The Acting Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued this memo directing agency heads across the federal government to immediately close all agency offices focusing exclusively on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives, and to place employees of those offices on paid administrative leave while the administration take steps to plan a reduction-in-force. The order directs agencies to ask employees to report changes to contract descriptions or personnel positions that obscure their relationship to "DEI or similar ideologies" and threatens employees with adverse consequences for failure to report. The order also directs agency heads to look back in time and provide OPM with a complete list of all diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility offices, employees, and agency contracts as of November 5, 2024.

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.

Challenged

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This memo directs U.S. Attorneys to prioritize immigration-related offenses and threatens local officials with prosecution if they do not enforce federal immigration policies.

As an initial matter, by directing Department of Justice (DOJ) officials and federal-state taskforces to prioritize the enforcement of immigration-related offenses with this memo, DOJ is de-prioritizing and undermining the enforcement of many other laws that keep our communities safe. Additionally, this memo tries to compel, under the threat of prosecution, state and local officials to enforce federal immigration law. Such coercion undermines the ability of local and state law enforcement to prioritize what they need to in order to keep their communities safe. Taken as a whole, this DOJ memo reads as an attempt to threaten, if not prohibit, cities across America from providing sanctuary to those in this country seeking refuge.

Challenged

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This policy, which requires Mexico's agreement, will send asylum seekers to Mexico for months or longer to wait for their asylum hearing, where they will be placed at risk.

In the first Trump administration, the Remain in Mexico policy (formally called the "Migrant Protection Protocols") sent tens of thousands of asylum seekers to dangerous and inadequate conditions in Mexico to await their asylum hearings. These asylum seekers often had to wait for months in parts of Mexico the U.S. State Department had classified as extremely dangerous, where many of them were kidnapped, extorted, raped, and even murdered. Because they were in Mexico, they had a much harder time locating a U.S. immigration attorney to help them prepare for their asylum hearings, and the vast majority of people subjected to Remain in Mexico did not have legal counsel for a complicated process in which their lives were often on the line. The Remain in Mexico program also gave far too much discretion to front-line Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents to determine whether to apply exceptions for children, people in medical emergencies, and asylum seekers with other pressing circumstances.

Challenged

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This DHS policy expands a fast-track deportation process called "expedited removal" so that it applies nationwide to immigrants who have been in the country less than two years.

"Expedited removal" is a fast-track deportation process that was created via legislation in 1996. Since then, the government has applied it only at the U.S.-Mexico border and only to immigrants who entered the country recently — within the previous two weeks. The first Trump administration tried to expand expedited removal to its statutory limits — nationwide, to immigrants in the country for less than two years. Now, they are doing it again. Any immigrant anywhere in the U.S. who was not admitted or paroled into the country and who cannot affirmatively prove that they have been here more than two years will be subject to a fast-track deportation system that lacks critical due process safeguards, including for people who fear persecution in their home countries.

Underway

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This executive order seeks to end all equity hiring programs in the Federal Aviation Administration.

Like other executive orders, this order repeats divisive falsehoods that the Federal Aviation Administration hired unqualified people for discriminatory reasons, rather than for merit. It singles out people with disabilities. The order then directs the Secretary of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administrator to end all Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives and review all individuals in critical safety positions to ensure they are qualified to do their jobs. This order will harm the aspiring and current public servants who have traditionally had less access to hiring opportunities, and it reinforces the false idea that the government has only hired people with disabilities by lowering its standards for them.