Executive Orders - 20 Jan 2025

1. Freeze federal hiring, except for members of the military or “positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety.”

www.whitehouse.gov

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby order a freeze on the hiring of

On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order instituting a hiring freeze across the federal civilian workforce. This directive prohibits filling any federal civilian positions vacant as of noon on that date and bars the creation of new positions, with specific exceptions. The freeze does not apply to military personnel or roles related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety. Additionally, the provision of Social Security, Medicare, or Veterans’ benefits remains unaffected. The Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) holds the authority to grant further exemptions as necessary.

Within 90 days of the memorandum, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in consultation with the OPM Director and the Administrator of the United States Digital Service (USDS), is tasked with presenting a plan to reduce the federal workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition. Upon the issuance of this plan, the hiring freeze will be lifted for all executive departments and agencies, except for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). For the IRS, the freeze will continue until the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the OMB Director and the USDS Administrator, determines that lifting it aligns with national interests.

The order explicitly prohibits contracting outside the federal government to circumvent the hiring freeze's intent. Agency heads are directed to utilize existing personnel and funds efficiently to maintain and enhance public services, ensuring that essential services and national security are not compromised. The memorandum does not restrict the appointment of officials to positions requiring Presidential appointment or Senate confirmation, nor does it affect non-career positions in the Senior Executive Service or certain excepted service positions. Furthermore, it does not abrogate any collective bargaining agreements in effect as of the memorandum's date.

This action mirrors a similar hiring freeze implemented by President Trump in January 2017, which was later lifted in April 2017.

2. Restore a category of federal workers known as Schedule F, which would lack the same job protections enjoyed by career civil servants.

3. Halt new federal rules from going into effect before Trump administration appointees can review them.

4. Review the investigative actions of the Biden administration, “to correct past misconduct by the federal government related to the weaponization of law enforcement and the weaponization of the intelligence community.”

5. Grant top secret security clearances to White House staff without going through traditional vetting procedures.

6. End remote work policies and order federal workers back to the office full time.

7. Bar asylum for people newly arriving at the southern border.

8. Move to end birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, for the children of undocumented immigrants. The president cannot change the Constitution on his own, so it is not yet clear how Mr. Trump plans to withhold the benefits of citizenship to a group of people born in the United States. Any move is all but certain to be challenged in court.

9. Suspend the Refugee Admissions Program “until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States.”

10. Declare migrant crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border to be a national emergency, allowing Mr. Trump to unilaterally unlock federal funding for border wall construction, without approval from Congress, for stricter enforcement efforts.

11. Resume a policy requiring people seeking asylum to wait in Mexico while an immigration judge considers their cases.

12. Consider designating cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations.”

13. Terminate D.E.I. programs across the federal government.

14. Recognize two sexes: male and female.

15. Remove protections for transgender people in federal prisons.

16. Direct federal agencies to begin an investigation into trade practices, including persistent trade deficits and unfair currency practices, as well as examine flows of migrants and drugs from Canada, China and Mexico to the United States.

17. Assess China’s compliance with a trade deal Mr. Trump signed in 2020, as well as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which Trump signed in 2020 to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement.

18. Order the government to assess the feasibility of creating an “External Revenue Service” to collect tariffs and duties.

19. Carry out a full review of the U.S. industrial and manufacturing base to assess whether further national security-related tariffs are warranted.

20. Withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, the pact among almost all nations to fight climate change.

21. Declare a national energy emergency, a first in U.S. history, which could unlock new powers to suspend certain environmental rules or expedite permitting of certain mining projects.

22. Attempt to reverse Mr. Biden’s ban on offshore drilling for 625 million acres of federal waters.

23. Begin the repeal of Biden-era regulations on tailpipe pollution from cars and light trucks, which have encouraged automakers to manufacture more electric vehicles.

24. Roll back energy-efficiency regulations for dishwashers, shower heads and gas stoves.

25. Open the Alaska wilderness to more oil and gas drilling.

26. Restart reviews of new export terminals for liquefied natural gas, something the Biden administration had paused.

27. Halt the leasing of federal waters for offshore wind farms.

28. Eliminate environmental justice programs across the government, which are aimed at protecting poor communities from excess pollution.

29. Review all federal regulations that impose an “undue burden” on the development or use of a variety of energy sources, particularly coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear power, hydropower and biofuels.

30. TikTok ban: Consult federal agencies on any national security risks posed by the social media platform, then “pursue a resolution that protects national security while saving a platform used by 170 million Americans.” Mr. Trump ordered his attorney general not to enforce a law that banned the site for 75 days to give the Trump administration “an opportunity to determine the appropriate course forward.”

31. Withdraw from the World Health Organization.

32. Rename Mount Denali and the Gulf of Mexico.

33. Ensure that states carrying out the death penalty have a “sufficient supply” of lethal injection drugs.

34. Fly the American flag at full-staff on Monday and on future Inauguration Days.

35. Implement the Department of Government Efficiency, the Elon Musk-led cost-cutting initiative.

36. Revoke security clearances for 51 signers of a letter suggesting that the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop could be Russian disinformation.

37. Delivering Emergency Price Relief for American Families and Defeating the Cost-of-Living Crisis