Trump’s First Week in Office: Implications and Insights for the Future 

As of January 20th, 2025, Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, and Trump’s first week in office commenced. 

Right as the day began, he already showed signs of breaking convention—such as not putting his hand on the bible during the inauguration. While not legally required, it is still a tradition that has been upheld by most presidents regardless of their religious background to show their respect for serving the people. 

Soon after, he began signing executive orders—rapid firing new protocols, revoking some, and revising others. Among taking the U.S. out of the World Health Organization, which ensures timely cooperation between all countries to minimize global health risks, Trump has also made motions to end birthright citizenship

Thankfully, this motion was blocked by a federal judge who noted, “I’ve been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order”.

However, he was still successful in passing other propositions. 

Critically, he shut down core capabilities of CBP One, an app from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that allowed migrants to schedule asylum appointments at a port of entry to the United States. It has helped provide legal entry to nearly one million migrants. 

Not only was the order effective immediately, appointments scheduled months in advance prior to the decision have been nulled. 

As a reminder, the very beginning of the United States was founded on immigration in the 1600’s with Europeans migrating to seek refuge to exercise religious freedom, pursue economic opportunities, and have political liberty—which are now ironically being denied and disaffiliated with the United States through Trump’s first week in office. 

Attempting to repeal birthright citizenship and making barriers to legal citizenship in the U.S. explicitly demonstrates that immigrants are unwelcome, as something to get rid of—which are dangerous ideologies that lead to growing resentment toward minorities. This pattern has been shown time and time again in history where legal, external discrimination based on race leads directly to internal racial discrimination as well.   

We can already see this happening as the Spanish website of the White House and the Spanish Twitter account have been deleted, or at least made inaccessible for an indefinite period of time. 

Not only that, Trump has also rolled back bedrock 1960’s civil rights: the White House ordered its DEI employees to be placed on leave

DEI has been long-targeted by the Trump administration and its supporters, but many fail to recognize that attempts to decrease DEI initiatives affects not those “unworthy”, but also veterans, women, and anyone who isn’t a white, cis, heterosexual, and able-bodied man. 

What does the future of the United States look like when all these policies, and many more, were executed during Trump’s first week in office? It may be unclear and frightening, but it’s important to know that there is power in people and strong communities. 


ARCC can be a place for you to start feeling that power. Joining the ARCC can help students understand how to form clubs at school while still following guidelines or possible restrictions and also help adults understand how these new policies will affect their livelihood.