Policies & Analysis

This action purports to fire MSPB Board Member Cathy Harris from her role at this independent agency.

The Merit Systems Protection Board is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1978 as part of the Civil Service Reform Act to uphold merit-based standards for the federal workforce and protect federal employees from prohibited personnel practices, including whistleblower retaliation. MSPB members are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate to seven-year terms and can only be removed by the President for "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." MSPB member Cathy Harris was confirmed by the Senate on May 25, 2022. On February 11, President Trump purported to fire Ms. Harris with a one-sentence email that did not allege any cause for her removal. Harris sued the same day.

The order eliminated the Federal Executive Institute, which has grown leadership and management skills in over 30,000 senior federal leaders since 1968.

The order eliminated the Federal Executive Institute, which has developed leadership and management skills in over 30,000 senior federal leaders since 1968.

This order renames and further empowers a previously established office that focuses on strengthening government assistance to faith-based organizations.

This executive order replaces the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI) with the White House Faith Office. Though largely a semantic switch, the EO does strike the referral requirements for organizations receiving federal funding. This means that if providers have religious objections to services, like reproductive care or care in the LGBTQ+ community, they are no longer obligated to refer clients to alternative options. That change could impact a myriad of programs including in the healthcare and education spaces.

This order directs the Attorney General to find and dismantle all Biden Administration policies, guidance, and international agreements related to gun safety.

This order calls on the Attorney General to examine all Biden Administration actions related to preventing gun violence for any limitations on the ability of gun owners and manufacturers to make, purchase, carry, or use firearms however they choose. This order likely presages the rollback of Biden-era policies regulating ghost guns, expanding background checks, and providing more oversight of gun dealers. It will make it harder for America to reduce crime, drug trafficking, and deaths by firearms, including the high toll on children and the disproportionate effect on people of color.

This National Institutes of Health guidance seeks to cut the amount of "indirect costs" funding that research institutions receive for facilities, equipment, and personnel.

This guidance caps the amount of "indirect costs" funding that universities and other research institutions receive at 15% of their "direct costs" amount. Until now, scientific and medical research institutions might receive 50% or more in indirect costs funding, which supports building and laboratory maintenance, equipment upkeep costs, accounting, and researcher compensation. The guidance will severely limit the ability of universities and other grant recipients to carry out vital and cutting edge research into topics affecting human health. Small institutions, including historically Black colleges and universities, may be especially likely to shutter research initiatives if they cannot access alternate funding in their budgets to cover indirect costs. America will lose its edge as a leader in research procedures and delivering results that positively impact health outcomes globally.

This policy cuts off all foreign aid to South Africa and prioritizes refugee resettlement for white South African farmers.

This policy expresses outrage at the treatment of "ethnic minority Afrikaners" in South Africa experiencing "racially discriminatory property confiscation," i.e., white South African farmers whose land is being redistributed by the government to promote domestic policy goals. In response, the executive order directs the government -- including USAID, which the administration is attempting to dismantle -- to stop providing any foreign aid to South Africa. The Order also directs the Departments of State and Homeland Security to prioritize humanitarian relief, including refugee admission and resettlement, for white South African farmers, despite the fact that the President suspended the U.S. Refugee Assistance Program three weeks ago.

This order creates a new task force, led by the Attorney General, to review Biden Administration actions protecting civil rights that it considers "anti-Christian."

This order establishes a Presidential Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias, housed within the Department of Justice and led by the Attorney General. The order justifies this task force by citing supposedly anti-Christian actions taken during the Biden administration, including: requiring schools, employers and foster parents to treat LGBTQIA+ students, employees, and foster children with respect; arresting protestors who unlawfully blocked patients' access to abortion clinics; and recognizing March 31 as Transgender Day of Visibility. The Task Force's duties include reviewing the activities of the Biden administration and suggesting that agencies terminate or revoke actions.

This order directs a review of all federal funding to non-governmental organizations, risking vital services around healthcare, workers, families, and more.

This order directs all executive departments and agencies to review all federal funding provided to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to ensure it aligns with current administration priorities, including the executive orders already issued. While all administrations review their funding decisions, the breadth of this review is staggering, especially in light of the numerous harmful and illegal funding-related decisions the Trump-Vance administration has already made.

This Notice terminates a TPS designation protecting hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who are lawfully present in the United States from deportation.

The Biden administration designated Venezuelans for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in 2021, and extended that designation in 2023, due to the "severe political and economic crisis" that had been occurring for years under the leadership of Nicolas Maduro. To terminate a TPS designation, the DHS Secretary must find that the conditions leading to the initial designation no longer exist. Here, Secretary Noem vacated the designation of TPS for Venezuelans without meeting that standard, and despite the fact that the State Department lists Venezuela as so dangerous that U.S. citizens should not travel there.

This order threatens to defund cities and states that choose not to spend their resources on immigration enforcement, prosecute state and local officials, and cut funding to NGOs.

This memo outlines how the Department of Justice (DOJ) will be targeting states and localities that choose not to expend their resources on federal immigration enforcement, which DOJ inaccurately describes as "willfully fail[ing] to comply with ... applicable federal immigration laws." First, DOJ will require all states and localities applying for federal law enforcement grants to certify their compliance with a narrow statute that prohibits states and localities from adopting a policy that prevents state or local officials from sharing with, or receiving, from the federal government "information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual." Existing "sanctuary" policies do not violate section 1373 and adding additional conditions to DOJ grants was widely found to be unlawful in the first Trump administration. Second, the memo directs DOJ to identify and pause for 60 days all funding to organizations that "support or provide services to removable or illegal aliens," while the Department reviews the funding to determine whether to end it entirely. The memo does not acknowledge the Department's obligation to spend money appropriated by Congress for the purposes identified by Congress. Finally, the memo threatens to prosecute state and local officials who decline to engage in federal immigration enforcement under a federal conspiracy statute, a statute that criminalizes the harboring or concealing of unauthorized noncitizens, and the non-criminal section 1373.

This order seeks to ban transgender girls from participating on girls' sports teams and from girls' locker rooms, and discourages trans inclusion in international competitions.

This executive order seeks to ban transgender girls from girls' sports teams and locker rooms in the name of protecting girls, but it does just the opposite. These bans harm all girls, including cisgender girls, by subjecting them to increased gender policing and arbitrary and invasive investigations. This order also harms intersex and nonbinary students as it increases surveillance of their bodies. The order directs the Secretary of Education to weaponize Title IX's protections against sex discrimination and bring enforcement actions against schools that allow transgender girls to participate on girls' sports teams or use girls' locker rooms, threatening the loss of federal funding for schools that do not comply. This is despite the fact that many federal courts have held that Title IX protects transgender students, and that the Supreme Court has held that discrimination on the basis of gender identity is a form of sex discrimination in an analogous civil-rights context. The order also directs the Secretary of State to rescind support for and participation in sports programs that allow trans women on women's teams, including the Olympics (which the United States is set to host in Los Angeles in 2028). And, it directs the Secretary of State to promote these discriminatory interests internationally, including at the United Nations.

The Trump administration has targeted and purged FBI and DOJ officials who played a role in investigations and prosecutions related to January 6th.

Since Donald Trump took office on January 20th, 2025, the administration has summarily removed Justice Department (DOJ) prosecutors from their positions who played a role in investigations and prosecutions related to the January 6th insurrection. And there has been a concerted effort to target and remove Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents who aided in these investigations and prosecutions, and even potentially to expose these agents' names to the public. This purge of law enforcement officials reinforces that no one will be held accountable for the events of January 6th. It also politicizes DOJ and the FBI. The potential exposure of the FBI agents' names could jeopardizes the lives of these agents and other federal government officials who have been unfairly attacked simply for doing their jobs.