With it officially being one week into President Donald J. Trump’s second term, we see a refreshing taste of an active executive branch. During his inaugural address last Monday, Trump proclaimed that his mandate was to “reverse a horrible betrayal” by the state with issues pertaining such as inflation, immigration and criminal justice. To fulfill this, week one contained a litany of base pleasing policy measures tapping into campaign promises. These policies have certified Trump’s goal for an America-First agenda centered around his nationalist pledges. Though the decisiveness and expediency of action from the Trump administration, week one certainly shows potential, I remain skeptical of the longevity of some of the executive orders. 
President Trump was elected with a historic mandate surrounding a few key issues. Particularly when it comes to immigration, President Trump goes hand and hand with an immigration-restrictionism agenda. To lay an immediate groundwork to his immigration agenda, President Trump has totally closed the border and ordered a barrier constructed. To do this, he has signed orders to deploy both federal law enforcement and the military to secure the border, along with instituting a 90-day suspension on the refugee admittance program, with prospects to continue the suspension for even longer. Barring refugee admittance is essential to ending illegal immigration, as many illegal migrants circumvent deportation by claiming refugee status. When entering the country, migrants are subject to passing a low bar “fear screening” where an immigration officer determines whether the migrant may have a claim to refugee status. The migrants are then given a court date far into the future due to backlog, released into the interior of the country, and disappear from the radar of authorities. According to the America First Policy Institute, because only 15% of refugees are given their status by a court, many illegal aliens do not show up to their court date and are rarely deported. For other methods used by incoming migrants, Trump has called on agencies to apply more strict guidelines on admittance and granting of visas.
Trump has also instituted the “Protecting the American People Against Invasion” executive order. This ordered the deportation of all illegal aliens, construction of detention facilities for the migrants, and instituting financial penalties for “sanctuary cities” who harbor them. So far, according to the department of Homeland Security, over 7,000 migrants have been deported, mostly consisting of violent and sexual offenders. Though 7,000 may sound like a lot, in one week it averages out to 1,000 a day. At that rate, Trump is well under half a million deportations every year, despite his calls for ICE to increase deportations to around 1,500 a day. Even with the increases, Trump is far behind to deport even the over 10 million estimated illegal aliens that came in during the Biden Administration. If Trump is going to meet his promised “mass deportations” then he is going to have to ramp up deportations to around 7,000 a day to return to the same illegal population when he last left office.
Skepticism for the longevity of some of his orders also surrounds his ending the interpretation of the 14th amendment regarding birthright citizenship. As a Trump-voter myself, I recognize the erroneous nature of birthright citizenship and the abuse of so called “anchor-babies.” That being said, I sincerely doubt that the Supreme Court will uphold the President’s authority to change the interpretation of a Constitutional amendment with an executive order. Though they may agree with Trump’s stance, that is still a big maybe that will likely be shot down by a lower court. Though Trump’s week-one immigration policies demonstrate his sincerity of action regarding immigration policy and indicate a positive direction, I await to see the long term follow through on things like a border wall, “mass deportations” and birthright citizenship.
As far as economic policy goes, “Drill baby drill” was a phrase that commonly echoed through Trump campaign events, highlighting his interest in increasing domestic oil production and establishing energy independence. Trump has often linked the rising energy prices under Biden to be the primary cause of the occurrences of inflation and the more expensive cost of living. To set the tone of the urgency of the cost increases, Trump has declared a national energy emergency through executive order. This order broadens the scope of the President’s power to rectify the crisis, including the facilitation of energy products such as energy production through land leases and pipeline construction. Along with this, Trump has prioritized Alaska for crude oil production, defying Biden-era restrictions on drilling and mining. Trump has also again withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accords, all to unleash American energy and remove the boundaries that restrict energy production and usage.
Week one also consisted of many other culture-war and base appeasing goodies. This includes the federal recognition of two genders, rollback of federal diversity equity and inclusion offices, the establishment of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and ending federal funding of abortion through the Hyde amendment. Trump has also controversially pardoned nearly 1,500 of the Jan. 6 Capitol protesters, claiming many of the protesters were being held as political prisoners. Only six protesters were given commutation with only 14 receiving neither a pardon nor commutation. By doing this, he fulfilled his promise to pardon a significant portion of the protesters, following through despite doubts due to discussions coming from his campaign about a “case-by-case” evaluation. Trump also ordered the declassification of the files relating to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr, fulfilling a neglected promise from his previous administration. He has also halted all foreign aid (except for Israel and Egypt of course) to secure an America-First foreign policy agenda.
After four long years of a slow-moving executive, President Trump has delivered a quick-acting and energetic Presidential administration which displays a genuine follow through of promises to his base. As an America-First conservative, there’s a lot to cherish and be excited about from week one, with a grand potential of continued success as we go into the remainder of the administration. Yet, I still have my reservations of the longevity of certain goals such as mass deportations, revocation of birthright citizenship and improvement of the economy from oil production alone.