President Biden signs executive order repealing Trump’s Muslim ban

President Joe Biden used his first day in office to reverse some of the controversial policies implemented by the Trump administration, including the 2017 ‘Muslim ban’ which put several restrictions on travelers from more than a dozen countries.

The policy was proposed by former president Trump when he first entered office and it was criticized as a “Muslim ban” for including countries like Yemen, Nigeria and Sudan. However, it went on to eventually include some countries with a non-Muslim majority.

The move to repeal the ban has been praised by several civil rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union that criticized the policy for being cruel.

Out of the 17 orders, memorandums and proclamations revealed on Wednesday, six of them dealt with immigration to try and undo some controversial policies implemented by Trump.

President Biden also ordered that the construction of the border wall near Mexico be halted, a move that was praised by the neighboring country. The border wall one of Trump’s campaign promises in 2016.

Other major immigration orders passed by the new president include preserving the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which shielded hundreds of thousands of people who came to the country as children from being deported.

President Biden has also promised to pass a bill that gives legal status and provides a path to citizenship for anyone in the country before 1st January while also reducing the time that family members must wait outside the US for green cards.

Apart from the immigration policy changes, the new US president also signed an executive order returning to the global health body and rejoining the Paris climate deal.

“We are going to combat climate change in a way we have not done so far,” the new US leader said in the Oval Office as he signed papers on the Paris deal, which was negotiated by Barack Obama when Biden was his vice president.

Read more: Joe Biden sworn in as 46th president of the United States.

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