Trump inaugurated, declares mass deportation, says only 2 genders in US

Donald Trump pronounced the start of a “golden age” in the United States after taking the oath for a historic second term as president on Monday, using his inaugural speech to lash out at what he described as a “broken” society that he would rescue. “The golden age of America begins right now. From this […]

Donald Trump pronounced the start of a “golden age” in the United States after taking the oath for a historic second term as president on Monday, using his inaugural speech to lash out at what he described as a “broken” society that he would rescue.

“The golden age of America begins right now. From this day forward our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world,” Trump said in the US Capitol, where his inauguration was held indoors due to chilly weather.

Trump took the oath with one hand raised in the air, using a Bible given to him by his mother, and became the 47th president.

He had travelled to the Capitol with outgoing Democratic president Joe Biden, who followed tradition by offering his successor tea at the White House.

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“Welcome home,” Biden had said to Trump as he and First Lady Jill Biden greeted the incoming president and his wife Melania at the White House.

Trump was a political outsider at his first inauguration in 2017 as the 45th president, but this time around he is surrounded by America’s wealthy and powerful.

The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos and Google CEO Sundar Pichai all had prime seats in the Capitol alongside Trump’s family and cabinet members.

Musk, who bankrolled Trump’s election campaign to the tune of a quarter of a billion dollars and promotes far-right policies on the X social network, will lead a cost-cutting drive in the new administration.

While Trump refused to attend Biden’s 2021 inauguration after falsely claiming electoral fraud, this time Biden has been keen to restore the sense of tradition.

Biden joined former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton at the Capitol. Former first ladies Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush were there but ex-first lady Michelle Obama pointedly stayed away.

The Republican – at 78 now the oldest person ever to take the presidential oath – was set to kickstart his new term with a blitz of immediate orders on immigration and the US culture wars.

 

Mass deportation

The 47th president will set to work almost immediately with a series of presidential decrees intended to drastically reduce the number of migrants entering the country.

“First, I will declare a national emergency at our southern border,” Trump said.

“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.

“I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country,” he said.

Trump, who campaigned on a platform of clamping down on migration and whose policies are popular with people who fret over changing demographics, also intends to put an end to the centuries-old practice of granting citizenship automatically to anyone born in the United States.

“We’re going to end asylum,” White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly told reporters, and create “an immediate removal process without the possibility of asylum. We are then going to end birthright citizenship.”

The notion of birthright citizenship is enshrined in the US Constitution, which grants anyone born on US soil the right to an American passport.

Kelly said the actions Trump takes would “clarify” the 14th Amendment – the clause that addresses birthright citizenship.

“Federal government will not recognize automatic birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens born in the United States,” she said.

Kelly said the administration would also reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy that prevailed under the last Trump administration.

Under that rule, people who applied to enter the United States at the Mexican border were not allowed to enter the country until their application had been decided.

“We’re going to… reinstate Remain in Mexico and build the wall,” she said.

Kelly said Trump would also seek to use the death penalty against non-citizens who commit capital crimes, such as murder.

“This is about national security. This is about public safety, and this is about the victims of some of the most violent, abusive criminals we’ve seen enter our country in our lifetime, and it ends today,” she said.

 

Court challenges

Many of Trump’s executive actions taken during his first term were rescinded under Joe Biden, including one using so-called Title 42, which was implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic preventing almost all entry to the country on public health grounds.

The changes under Biden led to an influx of people crossing into the United States and images of thousands of people packing the border area.

Trump and his allies characterised this as Biden’s “open border” policy, and spoke regularly of an “invasion.”

The incoming president frequently invoked dark imagery about how illegal migration was “poisoning the blood” of the nation, words that were seized upon by opponents as reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

While US presidents enjoy a range of powers, they are not unlimited.

Analysts say any effort to alter birthright citizenship will be fraught.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a Senior Fellow American Immigration Council, said the 14th Amendment was “crystal clear” in granting citizenship to anyone born in the United States, with the exception of children of foreign diplomats.

“We have had birthright citizenship for centuries, and a president cannot take it away with an executive order,” he told AFP.

“We expect rapid court challenges.”

Reichlin-Malik said all sides of the immigration debate recognised that the laws needed reform, but presidential orders were unlikely to achieve lasting change.

“Instituting new travel bans will make the US legal immigration system even more complex and expensive and difficult to navigate than ever,” he said.

“Our immigration system is badly out of date, and executive actions aiming to restrict it even further will harm the United States.”

 

Taking back’ Panama Canal

Trump also vowed that the United States would be “taking back” the Panama Canal.

Trump issued the threat, without explaining details, after weeks of refusing to rule out military action against Panama over the waterway, which the United States handed over at the end of 1999.

“Above all, China is operating the Panama Canal, and we didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama. And we’re taking it back,” Trump said.

Panama maintains control of the canal but Chinese companies have been steadily increasing their presence around the vital shipping link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Panama denies that China has any role in running the canal, and has repeatedly asserted its sovereignty over the waterway since Trump first threatened to take it over after he was elected in November.

At his inauguration, Trump said that the United States has been “treated very badly from this foolish gift that should have never been made.”

“The purpose of our deal and the spirit of our treaty has been totally violated. American ships are being severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape or form, and that includes the United States Navy,” he said.

The Panama Canal was built by the United States mostly with Afro-Caribbean labor and opened in 1914.

US President Jimmy Carter, who died last month, negotiated its return in 1977, saying he saw a moral responsibility to respect a less powerful but fully sovereign nation.

 

‘Only two genders’

Trump will also issue a series of executive orders targeting diversity programs and gender identity policies.

On the campaign trail, Trump railed against diversity, equity and inclusion policies in the federal government and corporate world, saying they discriminated against white people – men in particular.

He also demonised any recognition of gender diversity, attacking transgender people – notably transgender women in sports – and gender-affirming care for children.

In his inauguration speech at the US Capitol, Trump said “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.”

An incoming White House official told reporters ahead of the presidential inauguration Trump will order the US government to end federal diversity programs.

“I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life,” Trump said in his inauguration speech, calling the new moves a “revolution of common sense.”

The policies will almost certainly face legal challenges.

In practical terms going forward, official documents would be forced to “reflect sex accurately,” the official said, without stating whether that meant gender assigned at birth.

“No longer will the federal government be promoting gender ideology,” the official said.

The government would also only recognise two genders – male and female – ending official policies that recognised a third gender, denoted by an “X” on US passports for example.