First order of business: Trump directs federal employees to return to office

Of the executive orders signed by newly inaugurated President Donald Trump yesterday, he ordered federal employees to stop remote work and return to offices.

All federal departments and agencies in the executive branch have been instructed to require employees return to in-person work full-time. Some employees may be exempted from the order.

Trump also reissued a policy that removes job protections for thousands of government employees. According to White House officials, the orders are necessary to place restrictions on what Trump and his supporters refer to as a “deep state,” officials who fought against his actions while president from 2017 to 2021. The move also allows for the new president to revamp agencies with his supporters and allies.

The executive order instructing 2.3 million federal employees back to offices includes a hiring freeze on government positions, revamped hiring rules and other directives to make it easier for departments to remove senior employees.

“There have been numerous and well-documented cases of career federal employees resisting and undermining the policies and directives of their executive leadership. Principles of good administration, therefore, necessitate action to restore accountability to the career civil service,” one of the executive orders stated.

Federal positions include border patrol officers, meat inspectors and staff who oversee clean-air regulations.

Federal unions are expected to fight the return-to-office mandate, because some unions have remote work written in contracts.

“Every American has a stake in ensuring that federal employees remain free to carry out the mission of the agencies that employ them without fear of political interference,” American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelly said in a statement. AFGE represents 800,000 federal employees, including the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration.

Kelly said Trump’s directives are “a blatant attempt to corrupt the federal government by eliminating employees’ due process rights so they can be fired for political reasons.”

Most U.S. presidents issued at least one executive order during their time as president, as reported by NPR. George Washington issued his 1789 order for federal department leaders to share with him their ideas of what would be the United States as it pertained to their fields. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. In 1948, Harry Truman desegregated the U.S. military. In 2012, an executive order by President Barack Obama issued Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

The most executive orders were 3,721 issued by Roosevelt. President Joe Biden issued 162 orders and Trump issued 220 during his first presidential term.

Executive orders by presidents do not require congressional approval, but Congress may block executive orders in other ways, such as withholding funding.