In the 48 hours after President Trump took office on Jan. 20, he issued a torrent of executive orders and actions, many of them bearing directly on issues that matter to HR professionals and employers. For example, high-profile orders paved the way to deport roughly 11 million immigrants without legal status and increase immigration enforcement, which could eventually affect labor availability in some industries.
Other executive actions may have more immediate effects on hundreds of thousands of employers. Broadly speaking, Trump’s orders addressed actions the federal government is now authorized to take to advance the administration’s policy goals. Ultimately, many will trickle down to affect employer operations and HR.
Diversity, equity and inclusion
On the campaign trail, Trump routinely decried programs designed to foster diversity, equity and inclusion. Among his executive orders were several that:
- Declared DEI programs in the public and private sectors “dangerous, demeaning, and immoral” and said they “violate the civil-rights laws of this Nation”
- Ordered all federal agencies to “combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities”
- Ended equity initiatives and diversity training programs in federal agencies, which the executive order dubbed “radical and wasteful”
- Ordered the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs to cease promoting diversity, letting federal contractors base staffing decisions on affirmative action and encouraging contractors “to engage in workforce balancing based on race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion, or national origin”
- Directed the Department of Justice to take appropriate measures “to encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI” and develop a “strategic enforcement plan” aimed at publicly traded corporations, large nonprofits and foundations and richly endowed institutions of higher learning.
Gender issues
Several orders addressed culture-war controversies around gender identity. Trump:
- Ordered the State Department and Department of Homeland Security to remove “nonbinary” or “other” options from gender sections of federal documents, including passports and visas
- Declared it is “officially the policy of the United States that there are only two genders: male and female”
- Declared, “‘Sex’ is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of ‘gender identity,’” which “does not provide a meaningful basis for identification”
- Directed the Department of Justice to issue guidance to other federal agencies “to correct the misapplication of the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County,” the landmark 2020 ruling that said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employers from discriminating against employees because of their sexual orientation and transgender status.
Immigration
HR professionals in industries that traditionally employ immigrant workers should pay attention to executive orders that:
- Ordered officials to “repeal, repatriate, or remove any alien engaged in the invasion” of the U.S./Mexico border
- Expanded “expedited removal”—which allows the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to deport migrants without due process—to any “undocumented immigrants who have crossed the border within the last two years”
- Ordered “as many units or members of the Armed Forces, including the Ready Reserve and the National Guard” as necessary for the Department of Homeland Security to obtain “complete operational control of the southern border of the United States.”
Regulatory environment
One of the vaguest but potentially most far-reaching orders directed all executive branch agencies to stop issuing new regulations.
Federal workforce
Other orders directly targeted employees of the federal government. They:
- Instructed all U.S. government departments and agencies to require employees to return to the office, ending remote accommodations
- Announced a hiring freeze at all executive branch agencies except in “essential areas”
- Removed civil-service job protections for tens of thousands of government workers.