President Donald Trump, who considers himself “saved by god to make America great again,” was sworn in on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, as tech billionaires watched from front row seats. As the second president to serve non consecutive terms, Trump is already largely undoing former President Joe Biden’s efforts towards environmentally sustainable practices and is signing executive orders for “America [to] reclaim its rightful place as the greatest, most powerful, most respected nation on earth.”
After moving the inauguration ceremony indoors due to freezing temperatures and taking the oath of office, Trump moved to pass executive orders including a withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, a removal of the United States from the World Health Organization (which WHO hopes the US will strongly reconsider), and a stall of the TikTok ban. In addition, Trump mentioned previously that he would be revoking 80 executive orders made by the previous administration.
“Trump and his denial of global warming is honestly frightening and truly ignorant,” said Mira Costa student Savine Nguyen. “It’s disheartening to see tech CEOs supporting him.”
The President is also seeking to suspend refugee settlement, continue deportation operations, and eliminate established humanitarian parole programs — a program that allowed migrants from South America to stay in the United States for up to two years if they passed security screenings and had a financial sponsor. Since the establishment of the humanitarian parole program, 500,000 migrants have entered the United States lawfully and Trump has declared a national emergency at the Southern border.
“I think that by suspending the program, as well as making it harder for people to become citizens, Trump is actually developing more opportunities for people to cross the border unlawfully,” said Nguyen.
Trump has also attempted to get rid of birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed in the 14th amendment of the Constitution. This is to the extent that even if a mother’s presence in the US was lawful but temporary (e.g. student and work visas), a child will still not be recognized as a US citizen. And initial requests for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program that allows young immigrants to seek US protection, are no longer being processed and putting hundreds of thousands of people at risk for deportation.
“Trump is continuing to undermine our democratic values and polarize society through these changes,” says Nguyen. “Young students who rely on DACA could have everything stripped away.”
Thousands of refugees that have been approved to travel to the US prior to Trump taking office have already had their flight canceled by the State Department. All the while, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerburg, and other tech leaders joined in on the inauguration celebration after donating millions of dollars to Trump’s inaugural fund. For instance, Elon Musk took to the stage during inauguration festivities, rallying high spirits about the new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
“We’re going to have safe cities, secure borders, sensible spending, basic stuff,” Elon Musk announced on Monday. “And we’re going to take DOGE to Mars.”
However, despite the hope for DOGE to modernize federal technology and optimize government productivity, the department has been hit with lawsuits minutes after Trump took office. DOGE head, Elon Musk, is facing a particular lawsuit that highlights the violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which regulates the operations and transparency of federal advisory committees.
One of DOGE’s first acts followed Trump’s aims to eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs across the federal level, which has been helping schools address diversity issues and cultural awareness. Musk has taken to X, sharing screenshots of the unavailable DEI page on the federal government website, captioning his post “progress.”
Another startling order that Trump took steps to remove was the rights of transgender people in prisons and the recognition of sexes across the nation. Trump also issued a sweeping grant of clemency to the 1,600 rioters during the Jan. 6th insurrection, washing away prison terms that were over a decade in some cases. Yet, there are limits to the power of executive orders: Congress can overturn executive orders through legislation that negates it or deny the funding to an order. But this could be difficult with a Republican-led House and Senate.
“From this moment on, America’s decline is over,” Trump said during his inaugural speech. “The future is ours and our golden age has just begun.”
