Since arriving at the White House last Wednesday, the new US president. UU., Joe Biden, has signed almost 30 executive orders aimed at addressing the serious health crisis due to the covid-19 pandemic, While seeking to pull back the political controversies of his predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, in what has been seen as a 180-degree turn.
(You may be interested in: Trump’s political trial will begin the week of February 8th).
On January 20 alone, Biden signed 17 executive orders a few hours after taking over the country’s reins, and calling for unity to emerge from the crisis.
Among the measures that caught the most attention are those that point to Trump’s legacy. Several of them, related to immigration.
One of the first executive orders, for example, canceled the national emergency that the Republican had decreed to divert funds and thus finance the construction of the border wall with Mexico, One of the topics most exploited by the Republican administration over the past four years.
(Read here: Now that Biden is taking power, what will happen to the border wall?).
In addition, Biden extended deportation protections for the so-called dreamers, Children of illegal immigrants who have grown up in the country undocumented; overturned the immigration veto imposed by Trump four years ago on travelers from 11 Muslim-majority countries, Ordered re-counting undocumented immigrants in the population census conducted every ten years, and also reviewing the mechanisms of the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. UU. (ICE) when arresting undocumented.
Contrary to former President Trump, President Joe Biden was one of the first to be vaccinated against covid-19.
Also, and as promised in the campaign, Biden ordered the re-entry from EE. UU. to the Paris climate agreement and suspended the departure of the World Health Organization (WHO) which Trump had ordered last year in the midst of the pandemic.
These last two decisions earned Biden the recognition of the international community, which applauded his commitment to the fight against global warming and global health.
(Besides: What is the immigration project presented by Biden?).
However, even though Biden tried from day one to set a different tone, experts predict a complex path. “These first steps are welcome. But much of the damage caused by the Trump administration it is so deep that it will take time to undo and heal, “the Washington Office for Latin American Affairs (Wola) warned this week.
The truth is that the bulk of the measures and decrees signed by Biden in his early days were focused on fighting the pandemic, which he is already leaving in the US. UU. More than 414,000 dead, a figure that exceeds the number of Americans killed during World War II and that, as the president warned on Friday, could exceed 600,000, the highest figure ever mentioned.
These first steps are welcome. But much of the damage caused by the Trump administration is so deep that it will take time to undo and heal it
Initially, Biden signed an executive order on the day of his tenure urging Americans to wear mouthguards – mandatory only in some states – during the first 100 days of their presidency and that requires use in federal facilities. And the next day he signed ten more measures to stop the advance of the covid-19 in what he categorized as a “wartime” strategy.
Biden’s plan aims to speed up the manufacture, distribution and administration of vaccines, ensure their access to all Americans without discrimination, and combat the skepticism of those who do not want to receive the injectable.
Besides, federal government plans to work with states to create “all needed vaccination centers”, Including stadium enabling.
(You may be interested in: Biden accelerates the fight against covid-19 in the United States).
Additionally, the president ordered his government to resort to the law of defense production, legislation passed in 1950 in response to the Core Wara, to mobilize the industrial sector and accelerate the manufacture of equipment against the pandemic.
However, experts believe that this measure will not help too much to accelerate vaccine production, because manufacturing capacity is already at its maximum.
In response, the White House assured that JavaScript this law will help, for example, to increase the manufacture of a special syringe that allows to remove 6:00 dose from each vial of Pfizer, Instead of five.
EE. UU. It is one of the countries most affected by covid-19.
Biden promised that EE. UU. He will administer 100 million doses of the vaccine in its first 100 days in power, a goal that many consider low, because by the end of that deadline, April 29, the federal government should already have at least 200 million units available.
Another of the key decrees to contain the expansion of the pandemic states that who want to travel to EE. UU. from abroad a covid-19 test must be done before flying and stay isolated once they get home. A measure already implemented in several countries around the world.
(In context: Passengers arriving in the US UU. They have to quarantine).
While the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. UU. (CDC) had already announced the requirement of a negative coronavirus test before flying home, the Biden decree calls for this order to be revised in case the conditions for taking the test need to be further tightened.
The Democrat’s move also requires his cabinet to negotiate with the governments of Mexico and Canada over the possibility of strengthen public health protocols for entry into the US. UU. by land, now closed.
This same decree ordered the mandatory use of mouthpieces at airports and on most airplanes, trains, boats and buses, Thing that Trump he refused to do so and that many state and local airlines and authorities had been demanding for months. The president also signed, among other things, two executive orders extending federal aid to low-income families.
Those who want to travel to the US. UU. A covid-19 test must be performed from abroad before flying
However, Biden’s power through the executive orders has a limit, and for his large-scale plans he had to deal with a Congress in which while Democrats control both chambers, The majority in the Senate is so tight that the road is expected to be complicated.
Especially in the face of its two star proposals: a new one fiscal stimulus package, worth $ 1.9 trillion with new direct transfers to citizens, and a immigration reform that would pave the way for the legalization of more than 11 million undocumented people in the US. UU.
(Read here: Diversity and experience in the cabinet of Biden and Kamala Harris).
Biden, who was a senator for more than three decades, knows the workings of the upper house well and will have to convince the Republican bench to give the green light to the two proposals at a time of maximum polarization. Especially because the approval of the fiscal stimulus is key for its anti-covid strategy to work.
But, as he reported The Washington Post, Among some Republicans there is unease over the rain of executive orders, for the feeling is that these go against the so-called unity made by the agent.
And to the Republican reluctance is added the sending that the Democrats will make tomorrow in the Senate of the accusations for the beginning of the political trial of Trump to “incite insurrection” during the violent assault on the Capitol. They have already said, moreover, that the impeachment will begin in the second week of February.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
* With information from AFP and EFE
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