The Christian Post's top 10 news stories of 2021 (part 1)
7. Biden reverses many Trump policies first year in office
After Joe Biden entered the Oval Office as president of the United States in January, he and his administration have taken several actions aimed at reversing a host of Trump-era policies and practices — from departmental regulations to matters of historic narrative.
Among many things he did in his first days in office, Biden signed an executive order that dissolved the 1776 Commission, which was created through a 2020 executive order with the aim of advancing “patriotic education” for American students.
In May, the president issued an executive order that reversed a Trump order calling for the creation of a National Garden of American Heroes. The garden was meant to celebrate various historic American figures, including Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the Rev. Billy Graham and former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
In January, Biden announced that the U.S. would rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, which was purportedly created to help combat man-made impacts on the climate. President Trump had pulled out of the agreement in 2017, saying that it was harmful to the U.S. economy and noted that the U.S. had already cut emissions and surpassed the Paris Climate Accord. The U.N. later concurred, saying in its Emissions Gap Report 2020 that it wasn't necessary for the U.S. to re-join the agreement.
Immigration
On immigration, Biden pursued multiple measures, among them raising the cap for refugee resettlement after it had been dropped to historic lows during the Trump administration.
Biden also issued a memorandum in January restarting the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program after the Trump administration tried to bring the temporary program to a close. The DACA program was originally enacted in 2012 during the Obama administration to temporarily offer those who were illegally brought into the country as children, and younger than age 31 by June 15, 2012, the ability to apply for a two-year work authorization status in the U.S. that would renewable.
Another thing Biden did on his first day in office was reverse executive orders taken by former President Trump to limit immigration from nations where individuals were deemed to pose a terror threat to the United States. Democrats accused the policy of being a “Muslim ban” due to certain Muslim-majority countries being on the list. Countries affected by the travel ban before Biden’s revocation were Eritrea, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Myanmar, Nigeria, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Venezuela and Yemen.
The travel ban was first set in motion by former President Barack Obama, who in December 2015 signed into law the Visa Waiver Improvement Program and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act, which designated Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia as areas of concern.
Although Biden attempted to end Trump's “Remain in Mexico” policy, which required asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for their court hearings in the United States, a Trump-appointed judge ruled against the effort in August.
Conservatives have accused Biden's reversal of Trump's immigration policies of playing a role in the surge of illegal immigration at the U.S. southern border in 2021. U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows that the fiscal year 2021 saw a record 1.7 million border crossings, an increase from the 458,088 recorded in the fiscal year 2020 in 977,509 recorded in 2019.
Abortion
A pro-choice candidate who vowed to codify abortion rights into federal law, Biden made multiple efforts to reverse the pro-life policies of the previous administration. This included support for ending the Hyde Amendment, a measure that prohibited federal taxpayer funding of abortion in most circumstances.
In January, Biden rescinded the "Mexico City Policy," a measure that barred international groups that promote or provide abortions overseas from receiving U.S. government funds.
Originally proposed by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, the policy had been enforced during other Republican administrations, while previously rescinded under other Democratic administrations.
In October, Biden’s Health and Human Services Department issued a final rule that overturned a Trump-era ban on Title X family planning funds going to organizations that perform or promote the abortion.
Labeled a “gag rule” by critics, the previous Trump rule had been enacted in 2019 and had resulted in Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion business, withdrawing from the Title X program.
Religious freedom
In November, Biden’s HHS revoked Trump-era waivers from federal nondiscrimination law granted to faith-based foster care providers, drawing concerns that the religious conscious rights of faith-based entities that contract with the government could be in jeopardy.
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement at the time that waivers were “inappropriate” and “overly broad,” with the reversal being necessary to ensure that HHS is “best prepared to protect every American’s right to be free of discrimination.”
Also in November, Biden’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, a U.S. Department of Labor division, proposed narrowing the religious exemptions to federal discrimination law given to entities that contract with the federal government.
If enacted, the proposed reversal would end a Trump-era rule from 2020 that allowed contractors with the federal government who hold biblical beliefs on sexuality and gender to be exempted from federal LGBT anti-discrimination law.
In May, HHS announced that it was reversing a Trump-era repeal of an Obama-era mandate requiring doctors and healthcare providers to perform elective cosmetic surgeries for trans-identified people.
In August, the American College of Pediatricians, the Catholic Medical Association and Dr. Jeanie Dassow of Chattanooga, Tennessee, sued the HHS over what critics have called the "Transgender Mandate."
The lawsuit argues that the mandate violated the Administrative Procedure Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the First Amendment’s Free Speech and Free Exercise of Religion Clauses.
Michael Gryboski contributed to this report.
