Trump latest: Executive orders, DEI shake-up and the US-Mexico border | Donald Trump News

President Donald Trump has launched his second term with a flurry of policy actions to reshape the United States government.

His executive orders this week address issues including trade, immigration, foreign aid, demographic diversity, civil rights and federal hiring practices.

On his third day back in the White House on Wednesday, Trump gave his first television interview from the Oval Office. Meanwhile, his immigration agenda is in full swing with 1,500 personnel deployed on Wednesday to the southern border of Mexico.

Here’s a roundup of the latest updates and everything you need to know to navigate Trump’s second term:

All eyes on DEI:

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes are facing growing opposition across the US and have been placed under formal scrutiny within the federal government.

Adopted in the 1960s and ramped up in the wake of protests across the US after the 2020 killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man killed by police in Minneapolis, these programmes aim to ensure women and minority groups do not suffer discrimination in the workplace and are given opportunities for jobs and promotions.

But this is about to change. On Wednesday, Trump instructed agency heads to place officials working on DEI programmes within the federal government on paid administrative leave and ordered their offices to close.

The White House ordered all federal DEI workers to go on leave by 5pm (22:00 GMT) on Wednesday when the offices and programmes in question were shut down.

Trump also urged federal employees to inform on each other and their departments about any attempts to keep programmes operational but hidden. The move builds on an executive order in which he directed an end to what he called “radical and wasteful” federal government DEI programmes.

US companies are believed to spend about $8bn annually on such equity initiatives.

What has Trump said about DEI?

Trump directly addressed the programme during his inauguration speech: “This week, I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life. We will forge a society that is colour-blind and merit-based.”

What has the response been to Trump’s anti-DEI campaign?

After Trump’s election victory, several prominent companies started rolling back their DEI initiatives. Among them were Walmart, McDonald’s, Amazon and Meta.

Still, some corporations, including Costco and Microsoft, are forging ahead with their racial and gender equity programmes for the time being.

Civil and human rights advocacy groups promised to aggressively challenge Trump’s executive order.

Trump’s immigration crackdown starts

Trump’s immigration crackdown is under way. Acting Defense Secretary Robert Salesses ordered the deployment of 1,500 ground personnel to the border with Mexico on Wednesday.

Congress also passed a bill requiring undocumented immigrants arrested for theft or violent crimes be jailed while awaiting trial.

The bill, named in honour of Laken Riley, a Georgia nursing student who was murdered last year by a Venezuelan man, will next go to the White House to be signed into law.

What has Trump said about immigration?

“All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came,” Trump said in his inauguration speech.

What has the response been to Trump’s crackdown on immigration?

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said immigration talks have started between Mexico and the US.

According to a report by Bloomberg News, India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, met with his US counterpart, Marco Rubio, and told journalists that India is open to the lawful return of undocumented Indian immigrants. Indians are the third largest undocumented immigrant group in the US, according to data from the Pew Research Center.

First interview since returning to the White House

Trump gave his first interview since returning to the White House to Fox News, addressing a range of topics. Here are some of the highlights:

• Immigration: Trump told Fox News’s Sean Hannity that “prisons from all over the world have been emptied out into our country by [former President Joe] Biden allowing it to happen. I don’t even know if he knew what the hell was going on, but who would want this?”
• TikTok: Trump said TikTok might stay around despite a Biden-signed law banning the Chinese-owned social media platform since Sunday over concerns that the company poses a national security threat. Trump has downplayed the prospects of the Chinese government using Americans’ personal data on the app. “They make your telephones and they make your computers and they make a lot of other things. Isn’t that a bigger threat?” Trump asked.
• January 6 riot pardons: Responding to questions about pardoning his supporters who violently tried to overturn his 2020 election loss on January 6, 2021, at the US Capitol, Trump stood by his decision, stating: “I said I was gonna release them and probably very quickly, and they voted for me. I won in a landslide.”

Other things you might have missed:

• Gaza: On Wednesday, Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said he will visit Gaza in the coming days as part of what he called an “inspection team” to monitor the ceasefire reached between Israel and Hamas last week.
• Russia: Trump threatened to put “high levels of taxes, tariffs and sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the US” should Moscow fail to agree on a “deal” to end the war in Ukraine. “Settle now, and stop this ridiculous war,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform, addressing Russian President Vladimir Putin. “It’s only going to get worse.”
• Secret Service veteran Sean Curran: Trump nominated Curran to head the US Secret Service, the agency that protects current and former presidents and their families. Curran was among the agents who rushed to Trump’s aid after he was shot in the ear in a failed assassination attempt at a July campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Before you leave, you can find our list of every executive action Trump took on his first day in office here.