President-elect Donald Trump gave Senate Republicans a preview of his initial agenda Wednesday night during a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill, revealing a list of 100 executive orders prioritizing border security and domestic energy production.
The 45th president was joined in the meeting by some of his top aides, including homeland security adviser Stephen Miller, a Senate source told The Post.
Details of the meeting were first reported Thursday by Axios.
Trump, 78, has long said that he’s anxious to enact policy immediately upon taking office Jan. 20, even joking that he would sign “four or five different documents” at a “very tiny little desk” placed on the Capitol steps right after being sworn in as the 47th president.
Trump has also said he will sign at least 25 executive orders on the first day of his second term, The Post has calculated, referring to his previous statements on the campaign trail.
Not all the orders will take effect immediately, and some will certainly face legal challenges.
Immigration
Trump ran a campaign heavily focused on his promises to secure the border, and most of his “Day One” promises are dedicated to carrying out the “largest deportation” operation in US history and reversing President Biden’s migrant policies.
Both the president-elect and his designated “border czar” Tom Homan, have said deportations of illegal migrants will begin on Jan. 20, with Homan detailing what that operation would look like.
The first priority will be to deport migrants who have committed crimes, he’s said, adding that Congress needs to approve funding for at least “100,000 beds” for detention centers.
The military will be asked to provide planes to transport migrants out of the country, but will not be out on the streets making arrests, Homan has added.
Trump has claimed he would implement a “national emergency” to carry out “mass deportations” of those in the US illegally.
Trump has also said his executive actions will reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” rule for asylum-seekers, stop all migrant flights from the southern border region, end the practice of catch-and-release, restore a travel ban for “terror-plagued countries,” suspend refugee admissions and stop migrants from entering the country using the CBP One mobile app.
Most controversially, Trump has promised to end the automatic conferring of citizenship on children of illegal immigrants born on US soil.
“On Day One of my new term in office, I will sign an executive order making clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward, the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic US citizenship,” Trump said in a video posted in May of 2023.
That announcement is likely to be challenged in court, since the 14th Amendment states that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Energy
Trump has promised to do away with many of Biden’s energy policies, most recently saying he would reverse the incumbent’s ban on offshore gas and oil drilling.
“Banning offshore drilling will not stand. I will reverse it immediately,” Trump said at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday. “I will revoke the offshore oil, gas drilling ban in vast areas on day one.”
Other executive order promises have included scrapping Biden’s electric vehicle mandate and halting a ban on natural gas exports.
“I want to be a dictator for one day because I’m gonna get going with ‘Drill, baby, drill,’” Trump said on the campaign trail. “After that, I’ll never be a dictator.”
Trump has also said he wants to reopen Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Rescue for drilling operations, part of his promise to lower energy prices by 50% in 18 months.
Other executive actions
The president-elect has also said he will issue mass pardons to those arrested in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, whom Trump and his supporters have called “political prisoners.”
He’s also promised to fire special counsel Jack Smith, who had been pursuing several legal cases against him — though Smith may make matters easier for Trump by resigning before he takes office.
The Republican has also vowed to reverse the Biden administration’s attempt to redefine sex as “gender identity” in Title IX.
