the biden administration
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“Yet hear me clearly: Disagreement must not lead to disunion. And I pledge this to you: I will be a president for all Americans. All Americans. And I promise you, I will fight just as hard for those who did not support me as for those who did.” President Joe Biden was inaugurated into office Jan. 20, and he has big plans for his first 100 days. Along with tackling the coronavirus pandemic, Biden has plans to slow the spread of COVID-19, make the U.S. an international leader on climate change and produce comprehensive immigration legislation. After only five days in office, Biden signed 30 executive orders, with 17 signed on his first day in office. These executive orders span from immigration issues to workplace discrimination to canceling the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Before stepping into office, Biden announced his team of coronavirus advisors, led by Dr. David Kessler, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, Dr. Carcella Nunez-Smith, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Yale School of Medicine and Vivek Mirthy, the United States Surgeon General from 2014 to 2017. Along with this task force, Biden has released a vaccine distribution plan with a goal to reach one hundred million vaccine doses in 100 days, which some claim to be ambitious, but also within reach. On average, the U.S. has seen 700,000 to 800,000 vaccines a day, with few days that have reached the million mark. Claire Hannan, the head of the Association of Immunization Managers, claims that states need a dynamic surge in vaccine supply and reliable projections on what to expect for the weeks to come. But federal changes have been made to speed up vaccine
administration, and states have been criticized for slow vaccine distribution. To combat the slow vaccine distribution, as of Feb. 2 the Biden administration has announced that 1 million vaccine doses will be shipped out to approximately 6,500 pharmacies across the country. The new distribution plan is aiming to eventually expand to over 40,000 pharmacies, including major outlets such as CVS and Walgreens. As well as the vaccine plan, Biden has issued a mask mandate for federal property and all public transport, including airplanes, trains and busses. Biden has also rejoined the World Health Organization (WHO) after former President Donald Trump pulled out of the organization in July of 2020. Outside the COVID-19 pandemic, Biden has also begun to rejoin the U.S. with the Paris Climate Agreement and step up the U.S.’s climate change agenda. Jamal Brown, Biden’s campaign press secretary, has stated that Biden has come up with at least 10 executive actions regarding climate change within the US, including a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions via transportation by implementing the Clean Air Act, using the federal government procurement system to push toward 100% clean energy and zero-emissions vehicles and requiring public companies to disclose climate risks and their greenhouse gas emissions in their operations and supply chains.
challenges at the southern border,” and has revoked a Trump-era policy that held strict rules for communities known for shielding undocumented immigrants from deportation. He has also signed an executive order to incorporate undocumented immigrants into the national decennial population count, overturing Trump’s attempt to exclude them from the 2020 census. In addition to the more lax immigration laws along the U.S.-Mexico border, Biden has also retracted the Trump era Muslim travel ban, which banned travel from several majority-Muslim countries, affecting refugees from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. By lifting this ban, there will now be an improvement of visitor screenings and strengthening of information sharing with foreign countries and their governments. Biden also enacted an executive order Jan. 20 that reinstated Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which works toward the preservation and fortification of DACA and its recipients. The Obama-era program has shielded undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. as children from deportation, and has been heavily limited since Trump tried to end the program in 2017. Because of Biden’s new order, an immediate pathway to citizenship for those within the program will be implemented soon. WRITER | Carly Lidzy
The U.S. will also be seeing some immigration changes. In late October of 2020, Biden pledged to sign an executive order to create a task force to help reunite the families torn apart along the U.S.Mexico border during the Trump era, but has yet to sign any order pertaining to this specific issue as of Jan. 27. But Biden has promised to “address the humanitarian
national | feb 2020
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