Mexico celebrates brake on border wall 3:24
(CNN) -
President Joe Biden took office with the intention of healing a deeply fractured country and reversing the divisive legacy of former President Donald Trump.
A cry for survival comes from the planet itself.
A cry that could not be more desperate or clearer, and now political extremism, white supremacism, internal terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat, ”said Biden during his inauguration speech on Wednesday.
For the past four years, the Trump administration has adopted policies and initiatives targeting immigrants and undermining the nation's progress on civil rights.
All while the president's own words incited violence and fanaticism.
MIRA: Mexico celebrates Biden's decree to end the construction of the border wall
Contrary to the anti-immigration rhetoric of his predecessor, Biden immediately unveiled a comprehensive plan that included a multi-year path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants currently in the United States.
On his first day in office, nine of the 17 actions he took directly reversed Trump's policies.
Here's a look at some of the Trump-era policies and actions involving immigration, equality, and bigotry that Biden plans to address or might decide to modify:
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The assault on immigration
Immigrant Family Separations:
The Trump administration announced on April 6, 2017 a "zero tolerance" policy to prosecute all immigrants who cross the border illegally.
It led to the separation of thousands of families, including those with babies, some as young as a few months, because children cannot remain in federal jail with their parents.
It sparked protests in the streets and eventually sparked a rare change of mind on the part of the president himself.
The policy ended in 2018, but officials are still struggling to fix the problems it caused.
Last year, attorneys said they had been unable to reach the parents of 545 children from separated families, and that hundreds of those parents were likely deported without their children.
September 5, 2017 - The fight against DACA begins.
The Trump administration announced that day that it would end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
In the image, people protest in the city of Washington against the cancellation of the program.
(Credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / AFP via Getty Images)
One of Biden's decrees undoes Trump's expansion of immigration enforcement within the United States.
LOOK: Biden signs key decrees regarding the pandemic, immigration and equity and begins to reverse Trump's actions
"Remain in Mexico" Policy and the Border Wall:
Migrants have faced insurmountable challenges in seeking asylum and have been required to remain in Mexico in deplorable conditions, awaiting immigration hearings in the United States under the so-called
"Remain in Mexico"
policy. in Mexico »of the Trump administration.
The policy, officially known as Migrant Protection Protocols, was implemented in 2019 amid a surge in migrant arrivals to the southern border, with officials arguing that it would deter migrants from making the journey north.
About 55,000 migrants, many of whom are from Central America, have been sent back to Mexico, where they have been allowed to wait for weeks, if not months, in regions deemed dangerous by the US State Department.
In another effort to isolate the United States from immigrants and refugees, the Trump administration spent billions on building a border wall.
The Trump administration took a series of steps to erect additional barriers along the southern border, including declaring a national emergency to access additional funding, filing dozens of lawsuits to acquire private land, and waiving environmental laws. and contracting to accelerate construction.
LOOK: Allied and rival countries of the US react to the inauguration of Biden
On Wednesday, Biden's order halted construction of the border wall upon completion of the national emergency declaration used to fund it.
Trump sought to cancel DACA -
the Obama-era program that protected undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children from deportation was under legal and political siege.
The Trump administration tried to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2017, but the US Supreme Court blocked its attempt last summer.
A federal judge ordered authorities to fully restore the program in December, allowing newly eligible immigrants to submit new applications.
Trump also spent years limiting the number of refugees entering the country.
For the current fiscal year, his administration set the lowest limit the United States has seen in decades.
Citing the pandemic, the Trump administration enacted what critics described as unnecessary immigration restrictions, including new rules for international students, and blocked thousands of guest worker visas.
During his first day in office, Biden strengthened DACA.
Travel ban in predominantly Muslim countries:
In one of his first moves in office, Trump signed the first travel ban, causing mayhem at airports and ultimately landing on the Supreme Court.
The policy has been ridiculed by critics as an attempt to expel Muslims from the United States.
In 2018, the Supreme Court upheld the third version of the travel ban after previous iterations were challenged in court.
Current policy restricts entry to 13 countries to varying degrees, including Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, along with Venezuela and North Korea.
The administration has argued that the travel ban was vital to national security and ensures that countries meet the security needs of the United States by requiring a certain level of identity management and information sharing requirements.
On Wednesday, Biden reversed the Trump administration's restrictions on passport holders from seven Muslim-majority countries.
LOOK:
The 5 things you should know this January 21: The first decrees of Biden
Setback against the defense of racial justice
Trump criticized protesting NFL players: Athletes knelt, raised their fists, or did not take to the field while the National Anthem was played before games across the country to draw attention to systematic biases against people from Colour.
His actions enraged Trump.
He criticized the players, saying they were outraged by "something that most of them cannot define" and reiterated his belief that players who do not defend the National Anthem should be penalized.
The protests began in 2016 when Colin Kaepernick, then a San Francisco 49ers quarterback, sat down and then knelt before several preseason and regular season games.
He said he did it to protest police shootings of black men and other social injustices faced by the black population in the United States.
A protester holds up a sign that reads "Latinx for Black Lives Matter" in New York on June 2.
Last year, Trump called the "Black Lives Matter" movement a "symbol of hatred" and described people protesting for racial justice as "bullies."
Camilo and his guest discuss the assault on the Capitol 2:16
The Justice Department Virtually Abandoned Broad Police Investigations: Former Justice Department attorneys told CNN that the wide-ranging investigations and consent decrees that had defined the Obama administration's approach to police misconduct nearly disappeared under Trump.
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke out against the consent decrees and police investigations, arguing that the cases can lower police morale.
Before Sessions left the department in November 2018, he put in place a memorandum that required consent agreements to be “strictly tailored” to injuries caused by misconduct and limited the use of court monitors, among other stipulations.
Trump banned anti-discrimination workplace training:
Federal agencies were instructed to identify and cancel agency contracts and expenses related to training programs that suggest that the United States "is an inherently racist or evil country" or "that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil.
“Trump consistently aligned himself against efforts to address America's strained racial past, claiming that some of those efforts amount to erasing history.
Ending a Rule Aimed at Fighting Home Segregation:
The Trump administration ended the Obama-era rule known as Affirmative Promotion of Fair Housing in 2020.
The rule was enacted in 2015 as a way to enforce the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prohibited restrictions on the sale or rental of homes to individuals based on race.
In 1973, Trump and his father were charged in a federal civil rights case with violating those restrictions.
The case was finally resolved after Trump tried to countersue.
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Even though the Fair Housing Act was in effect for decades, many neighborhoods remained segregated, and communities of color were less likely to have access to good schools, health care, and public programs needed to help citizens get out of town. poverty.
The Affirmative Fair Housing Promotion rule was deemed essential to further level the playing field for disadvantaged populations.
Political rhetoric linked to violence
White Supremacist Rally in Charlottesville:
Trump's handling of the deadly 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was widely criticized and deemed dismissive.
In a press conference, Trump blamed the violence on both sides of the conflict.
He also took days to publicly acknowledge the death of Heather Heyer, 32, who was murdered while protesting white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
The president's top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, considered resigning and the corporate titans that made up his business advisory council resigned, but the controversy appeared to have had little long-term consequences within the White House.
LOOK: A Proud Boys leader was arrested in Florida in connection with the disturbances in the Capitol
Mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and the Tree of Life synagogue:
Many Latinos and immigrants said they were living in fear after a gunman opened fire at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas on August 3, 2019 , killing 23 people.
The shooting was allegedly carried out by a suspect who published a four-page document filled with white supremacist language and racist hatred directed at immigrants and Latinos, including some phrases Trump had made in the past.
In a national speech days after the shooting, Trump called on the nation to condemn racism and white supremacism.
But he failed to acknowledge his own divisive and racist rhetoric.
A year earlier, a gunman killed 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, an incident considered the deadliest attack ever committed against Jews in the United States.
Federal prosecutors brought hate crime charges against the suspect, who previously claimed Jews were helping transport members of migrant caravans from Central America.
The Trump administration described the group of migrants as a threat to national security.
As Trump denounced the Pittsburgh shooting, the massacre broadened the national debate over the president's divisive rhetoric.
Some people, including a local rabbi, said that the president's hate speech had led to the massacre.
The US is experiencing a degradation of democracy, says sociologist 2:08
The US Capitol Insurrection:
Convinced that the presidential election had been stolen, the Trump-supporting rioters promoted themselves as "patriots" and repeatedly chanted "America, America."
as they tore apart the building in the heart of American democracy on January 6, the day Congress held a meeting to finalize the victory of the Biden Electoral College.
Hours before the insurrection, Trump had addressed a crowd of supporters gathered in the Ellipse near the White House, stoking false accusations of voter fraud and telling them to "fight like hell."
We're going to walk to the Capitol.
And we will cheer for our brave senators and congressmen and women.
And we are probably not going to encourage some of them so much, because we can never recover our country with weakness, we must show strength and we must be strong, "he said.
Trump was indicted a second time for his role in inciting the insurrection.
Biden called for racial justice and unity in the United States on Wednesday, recognizing that the nation has been deeply divided by political forces and systemic racism.
LOOK: The keyword of Joe Biden's speech: Unity
In his inauguration speech, Biden denounced white supremacy and domestic terrorism and said the nation needs to be repaired and healed.
“To overcome these challenges, to restore the soul and secure the future, America requires much more than words.
The most elusive of all things is required in a democracy: Unity.
Unity, ”said Biden, speaking from the same platform that had been assaulted by armed insurgents two weeks ago.
He acknowledged that talking about unity may seem silly these days, but the struggles facing the nation are not new.
“I know that the forces that divide us are deep and real.
But I also know that our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal that we are all created equal and the stark reality of racism, nativism, fear, and demonization.
for a long time it tore us apart, "he said, before adding that the best angels in the nation have always prevailed.
CNN's Eric Bradner, Betsy Klein, and Christopher Hickey contributed to this report.
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