Policies & Analysis

Underway

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This order directs political appointees and the DOGE to create a hiring plan that would further undermine career public servants and their ability to serve the American people.

This order begins by repeating falsehoods about federal hiring, including claims that it is driven by illegal, discriminatory preferences, rather than the merit system it is actually based on. It then uses that false premise to order political loyalists — including the yet-unnamed leader of the DOGE — to create a federal hiring plan accordingly. The order may increase, rather than decrease, hiring discrimination by assessing candidates based on easily manipulated attributes like faithfulness to the Executive Branch — rather than the country or our Constitution.

Challenged

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This order establishes the "Department of Government Efficiency," which has been tasked with modernizing federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency.

This executive order claims to create the "Department of Government Efficiency" as a Temporary Organization under 5 U.S.C. 3161, with a stated purpose to modernize federal technology and software in order to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity. Such a mission may appear to be benign, or even a positive development for the federal bureaucracy, but Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and others associated with DOGE have made clear their intent to target, overrule, or undermine civil servants; roll back important protections that keep us safe; and, cut massive programs that benefit tens of millions of Americans.

Underway

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This order establishes new standards for naming geographic features, including renaming Mount Denali to Mount McKinley and the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

This order addresses the composition of the Board on Geographic Names, directing agency heads to consider replacing appointees on the board. It also lays out vague principles to guide the board’s naming and renaming of geographic features, which are encapsulated in the two specific changes the order makes to the current names: Mount Denali to Mount McKinley and the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Both changes reflect the rhetoric of the Trump administration, making implicit references to tariffs and trade policy, as well as a dismissal of Native American history and international cooperation.

Underway

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This order injects politics into the hiring, review, and retention of public servants in the "Senior Executive Service" who keep the government running for the American people.

This memo directs Trump-Vance political appointees to control various personnel affecting non-partisan senior executives. The key initiatives include requiring that performance plans are set centrally, rather than by supervisors; reassigning these senior executives without real guidance; and, having political appointees dominate the internal boards that oversee hiring and performance. The clear purpose is to harass and control those nonpartisan public servants who have the most experience delivering for Americans.

Challenged

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This order seeks to severely narrow government protections and support for transgender, intersex, and nonbinary individuals.

Relying on false claims that attempt to divide communities, this order claims to change the policy of the United States to recognize only two genders (male and female), and attempts to redefine those and other terms throughout federal law to comport with this harmful worldview. It also orders the Attorney General to issue guidance to circumvent Supreme Court case law that supports transgender protections and orders several agencies to investigate people deemed to have prevented others from expressing the administration's dangerous views. This order squarely targets transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people for discrimination.

Underway

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This order directs the Attorney General not to enforce the TikTok ban for 75 days.

This order directs the Attorney General to pause enforcement of the federal TikTok ban for 75 days while the Trump administration attempts to secure a deal that will allegedly address the national security threats underlying the ban, while preserving the platform for American users. Trump originally supported the ban in his first term, and the Supreme Court recently upheld it. As of January 20, based on this order, TikTok continues its operations in the United States.

Temporarily Blocked

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This order directs federal departments and agencies not to issue or accept citizenship-affirming documents for babies without at least one citizen or LPR parent.

This claims to end Birthright Citizenship by directing the U.S. government to withhold the issuance of documents and to refuse to accept state, local, or other documents recognizing the U.S. citizenship of babies born after Feb. 20, 2025 who do not have at least one citizen or Legal Permanent Resident (LPR, greencard-holder) parent. This order violates the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent, which held that all babies born in the United States are citizens, whether their parents are authorized to be here or even eligible for citizenship at all. This order also differentiates between the citizenship status of a child's mother and father and makes no provisions for babies born to unknown fathers.

Challenged

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This order claims inherent executive authority to prevent asylum seekers and others from crossing the southern border, based on claims of an "invasion" that is not happening.

This executive order is a massive power grab by the president, who is claiming inherent constitutional authority to suspend laws passed by Congress — specifically, the entire asylum system that Congress created in 1980. Conflating immigration with an "invasion," and citing caselaw from a time before the asylum system was legislated, this order claims authority to prevent any noncitizens "engaged in the invasion" — though it is unclear who falls into that category — from entering the country. This order also claims to deny those noncitizen people the right to apply for asylum.

Underway

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This order either pardons or commutes the sentences of any person who was convicted of an offense related to the attack on the Capitol on January 6th, 2021.

By pardoning or commuting the sentences of all those convicted of participating in January 6th Insurrection, Donald Trump made it clear to the nation that no one responsible for the violence committed that day would be held accountable. This includes those who were convicted of assaulting police officers and those convicted of seditious conspiracy. This executive order risks further violent outbursts from the President's supporters in the future, with or without his direction.

Challenged

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This is an omnibus border-related order that will result in more immigration detention and fewer people getting access to the U.S. asylum system.

This order contains a number of provisions — not all of which can go into effect immediately, but all of which signal that this administration will attempt to cut off access to asylum as much as possible and to detain as many immigrants as possible. The order directs the Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to build the wall and send more personnel to obtain "complete operational control" of the border, a standard that has never been met and could not be met without diverting the resources of the federal government in a drastic manner. The order also instructs the Attorney General and DHS Secretary to assign additional federal personnel to enforce immigration law. As many immigrants as possible are to be detained, instead of being allowed to litigate their immigration cases from their own communities where they have access to documents, counsel, and resources that they cannot obtain in detention. The order instructs the Secretary of State to restart Remain in Mexico and to negotiate so-called "safe third country" agreements, which require the assent of other countries. This order also ends the CBP One app, a flawed phone app that nonetheless allowed asylum seekers to go to ports of entry at assigned times, ends a parole program for citizens for Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela (CHNV), and signals a severe decrease in the use of parole overall. The order directs the Department of Justice (DOJ) and DHS to do more DNA testing of migrants, including of families, and to prosecute more border-related offenses. Finally, this order suggests the Administration will use Title 42's public health authority to cut off access to asylum within the next two weeks.

Underway

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This order revokes the security clearances of 49 former intelligence officials for their public statement in warning of the risk of Russian disinformation in the 2020 election.

In the closing days of the 2020 election, the New York Post published emails it obtained from President Trump's then lawyer Rudy Giuliani purporting to show Hunter Biden using his influence with his father to obtain favorable treatment for a Ukrainian company. Fifty-one former intelligence community officials, including Jim Clapper, Mike Hayden, John Brennan, and Leon Panetta, wrote a public letter warning that the emails had "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation" and that if they were correct it was important for Americans to be aware that "this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election." The order revokes any active security clearances held by the signatories to the letter and directs an investigation of any other related conduct. The Order also revokes the security clearance of President Trump's former National Security Advisor John Bolton for the purported reckless disclosure of sensitive information in his memoir.

Challenged

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This order reinstates "Schedule F" and makes it easier to fire career civil servants who provide critical services to all Americans.

By making it easier to fire career civil servants, this executive order significantly impairs our government's ability to provide essential services that millions of Americans rely on. Indeed, career civil servants are nonpartisan experts who help keep our food, medicine, transportation, and water safe; secure our public safety and our national security; deliver our mail; support our education and health care systems; and work in our court houses, our airports, our national parks, and so much more. This order could enable a political leader to replace these nonpartisan public servants with partisan ideologues.