United States President, Joe Biden, has signed a string of executive orders, memorandums and directives that will reverse some of his predecessor, Donald Trump’s policies.
The orders are rescinding Trump’s order that restricted the granting of immigrant visas, the so-called “Muslim ban”, rejoining the Paris climate accord, and ending the process to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO).
One of those reversed policies is the restriction placed on granting immigrant visas.
In 2017, Trump signed an executive order that banned travellers from seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the US.
The ban was changed several times amid legal challenges and ultimately upheld by the US Supreme Court in 2018.
In January 2020, the Trump administration expanded the curbs on immigration to include six more countries, including Nigeria.
At the time, the US government said the policy was designed to tighten security for countries that don’t comply with the U.S. minimum security standards or cooperate to prevent illegal immigration.
But the Biden administration, which campaigned partly on a message of diversity, is seeking to re-open America to the world.
Biden rescinded the so-called “Muslim Ban”, an executive order Trump signed in 2017 that banned travellers from seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the US.
“The president put an end to the Muslim ban – a policy rooted in religious animus and xenophobia”, Biden’s White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said during a Wednesday evening briefing.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations welcomed the decision as “an important first step toward undoing the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant policies of the previous administration”.
“It is an important fulfilment of a campaign pledge to the Muslim community and its allies,” the group’s executive director, Nihad Awad, said in a statement.
The reversal is part of a 10-day onslaught of executive actions intended to overturn key Trump policies without waiting for Congress, on topics ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to climate change and criminal justice, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.
Biden has halted the US exit from the World Health Organization, stopped construction of Trump’s cherished wall on the Mexican border, and rescinded a ban on visitors from several Muslim-majority nations.
He has also committed the United States to rejoining the Paris climate accord, blocked an oil pipeline project, and froze Arctic drilling in a raft of executive orders signed hours after taking office Wednesday.
