Since taking office on Jan. 20, President Joe Biden has signed more than 30 executive orders aimed at controlling the coronavirus pandemic, immigration, the environment and equity.
Many of the orders reverse actions from former President Donald Trump, including stopping funding for the border wall and revoking the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.
On Monday, Biden signed an executive order to allow transgender people to serve in the military. He also issued an order to strengthen “buy American” rules for the federal government.
The executive orders, many of which are temporary, could have immediate impact on North Carolina and the rest of the country.
During his first days in office, Biden issued several executive orders to help states deal with the response to the coronavirus pandemic. In the United States, more than 25 million people have contracted the virus and almost 420,000 have died as of Monday, according to data tracked by Johns Hopkins University.
The United States has, by far, the highest number of cases and deaths in the world from the pandemic. North Carolina has had more than 720,000 cases and 8,720 deaths, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.
Biden’s orders include reimbursing states for calling up the National Guard to help fight the pandemic and for money spent on emergency supplies. It is not clear just how much that will total in North Carolina. The state continues to try to control the virus, treat people with the most severe symptoms and mount the biggest vaccination campaign in U.S. history.
A separate order directs the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help states stand up and run vaccination clinics.
Related: Biden White House to Hold "Science-Led" COVID Briefings Starting Wednesday, Press Sec Announces
Dr. Mandy Cohen, secretary of the North Carolina DHHS, said the state welcomed federal help to get the vaccines out, but added that any federal vaccination clinics should come with a higher supply of vaccine doses.
As of right now, the state gets a weekly allocation from the drugmakers Pfizer and Moderna. Cohen said the state is not getting enough doses as it is for vaccine sites already established in North Carolina.
Other orders direct the Department of Education to figure out how to reopen schools safely during the pandemic and for the Occupational Health and Safety Administration to give better guidance for worker safety.
A flurry of executive orders hope to help people suffering during the economic downturn. Biden extended the foreclosure and eviction moratorium until the end of March, including in North Carolina. There’s a separate order on suspending evictions from Gov. Roy Cooper.
A separate order also expands food assistance for people in the United States during the pandemic.
Another order extends the pause on federal student student loan interest and payments until at least the end of September.
Related: Biden Ordering Stopgap Help as Talks Start on Big Economic Relief Plan
The “Made in America” order, signed Monday, closes loopholes in the federal governments “Buy American” program directing federal agencies to buy products made in the United States.
“With this order, President Biden is ensuring that when the federal government spends taxpayer dollars they are spent on American made goods by American workers and with American-made component parts,” the White House said in a statement.
Robert Handfield, a supply chain management professor at N.C. State University, said North Carolina has a history of manufacturing and this new directive from the Biden administration could help the state.
“The State of North Carolina has a lot of resources, certainly with the background in the textile industry, a strong pharmaceutical sector here in RTP, as well as strong engineering and manufacturing capabilities across the state,” he said in an interview with Spectrum News 1.
“That puts us in a very good position to benefit from some of these Buy American directives,” Handfield said.
A new executive order reverses many of Trump’s immigration policies. Biden cancelled the emergency funding for the wall along the southern border of the United States.
He also reinstated the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
The DACA program allows children brought to the U.S. by their parents, so-called Dreamers, to remain in the country legally. As of March 2020, there were an estimated 24,000 DACA recipients in North Carolina, according to federal immigration data.
On his first day in office, Biden ordered that undocumented people in the U.S. will be included in the census count, as they had in previous counts.
The Trump administration decided not to include undcumented immigrants in the count, which could have changed the population counts for states and even had an effect on how many representatives some states could send to Congress.
The Biden administration also put a moratorium on new deportations. Stefania Arteaga, with the North Carolina ACLU, said the moratorium will only be for 100 days as the Biden administration develops its own immigration policy.
Right now, Arteaga said, immigrant families “can take a sigh of relief,” but should be paying attention to what happens as the Department of Homeland Security gets new leadership in the coming months.
“This administration is bringing in a lot of Obama-era folks that have a history of deportations and the construction of a very powerful deportation machine,” she said.
“The Biden administration is trying to figure out what their next steps are,” she said.