President Donald Trump’s actions on immigration and border security have raised concerns among Americans, including among immigrants’ rights advocates and military experts. Within his first few days in office, the President reportedly directed that anyone crossing the southern border into the U.S. be immediately returned, a move that legal experts claim violates federal and international law. Additionally, Trump has ordered the deployment of “thousands” of military troops to the border—potentially as many as 10,000, according to CNN—on top of the more than 2000 already stationed there. Calling them “political props,” some military experts have criticized this action as unnecessary.

“The Trump administration asked the military earlier this week to be prepared to deploy up to 10,000 active duty troops immediately, setting off a scramble inside the Pentagon, one of the officials and another person familiar with the matter told CNN,” the news network reported Wednesday.

“Citing President Trump’s extraordinary move to close the American asylum system, U.S. border agents have been instructed to summarily deport migrants crossing into the country illegally without allowing them to request legal protection, according to internal government documents and agency officials,” CBS News adds. “Just hours after being sworn in, Mr. Trump invoked sweeping presidential authorities to bar the entry of migrants deemed to be participating in an ‘invasion’ of the U.S., as well as those who may pose a public health or national security risk.”

READ MORE: Trump May Invite J6 Pardoned Convicts to the White House: CNN

CBS News’ Camilo Montoya-Galvez adds, “President Trump has effectively revived the Covid-era Title 42 policy, suspending U.S. asylum law for unauthorized migrants entering the country. But instead of using public health law, he’s asserting sweeping constitutional and 212(f) powers and arguing there’s an ‘invasion.'”

Iraq War veteran, veterans’ activist, and writer Paul Rieckhoff blasted President Trump for sending more troops to the border.

“There already 2,500 National Guard and Reserve forces there. Sending active duty troops to the border now is nothing more than Trump overtly using them as political props,” he charged. “Especially since active duty troops are forbidden from doing law enforcement under the Posse Comitatus Act. They can’t arrest or detain anyone at the border unless Trump acts to invoke the Insurrection Act. Which of course may be next.”

“Nevertheless,” Rieckhoff added, “this is a blatant politicization and misuse of our military by Trump. And likely just the first of many to come. Especially if [Pete] Hegseth is confirmed [as Secretary of Defense]. Everything in America is going to be used and politicized by Trump. Our military most egregiously and dangerously of all. Strap in, folks. And stay vigilant. This is just the start. #PresidentMayhem is back.”

READ MORE: ‘Civil Rights Canon in American Law’: Trump Rescinds Historic LBJ Nondiscrimination Order

Attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an immigration policy expert and senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, called Trump’s order to essentially send back immigrants crossing the border, “Flagrantly and flatly illegal.”

“A president cannot erase the laws passed by Congress and the right to due process with the stroke of a pen,” Reichlin-Melnick said. “This is an invocation of authority that should worry any American. A president is not a king. He is bound by the law and must remain so.”

MSNBC columnist Michael A. Cohen, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic Studies (CSS), added, “Trump is basically ignoring domestic and international law by doing this.”

“So disturbing that U.S. law enforcement officers at CBP are being directed to violate laws enacted by Congress & treaties entered into by the United States. This is the opposite of the rule of law. It’s the road to chaos. And will endanger lives here & around the world,” observed Eleanor Acer, Refugee Protection director at Human Rights First.

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They assaulted police officers and crashed and trashed the People’s House — some in an effort to overturn a free and fair election — but now that Donald Trump is President and has granted a “full pardon” to about 1500 of them, some of the January 6 rioters and insurrectionists reportedly may get an invitation to the White House. Trump has repeatedly called them “hostages.”

CNN’s Alayna Treene reports (video below), “there have been discussions about having them come” to the White House for a visit “and a potential meeting with Donald Trump.”

“I’m told, according to two sources we’re familiar with, some of these discussions that essentially, some Trump administration officials have had discussions over potentially inviting the people that Donald Trump pardoned on Monday, the January sixth convicts,” she added.

Treene notes it is “unclear exactly who he’s thinking about, if it includes just the people he pardoned or also those who he commuted the sentences of, uh, including Oathkeepers , uh, and Proud Boys.”

READ MORE: ‘Civil Rights Canon in American Law’: Trump Rescinds Historic LBJ Nondiscrimination Order

She stressed, “it’s unclear, um, if this is even going to happen, it is under consideration.”

According to the Washington Post, 14 of the January 6 defendants were convicted of seditious conspiracy. At least 379 were charged with assaulting police or the media — the vast majority of them have also been sentenced. 287 were charged with “less violent or nonviolent felonies.” Most of them have already been convicted. And 869 were charged with “misdemeanor counts such as trespassing or disorderly conduct.” The vast majority of them have also been sentenced.

About 140 law enforcement officers were injured on January 6, 2021.

“While Trump had long promised pardons for many, if not most, of those convicted of nonviolent crimes on Jan. 6,” NBC News reported, “he had been less clear about how he would handle those found guilty of violent offenses, including 169 people who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers.”

“Trump decided to go about as far as he could, issuing roughly 1,500 pardons and commuting the sentences for 14 others.”

READ MORE: ‘Hunting Grounds’: Trump Cancels Biden Ban on ICE Arrests at Schools, Churches, Hospitals

On Tuesday, Trump “suggested there could be a place in American politics for the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, extremist groups whose leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy against the U.S.,” the Associated Press reported.

Watch the video below or at this link.

According to CNN’s sources, Trump Administration officials have had discussions about potentially inviting the people that Trump pardoned to The White House. pic.twitter.com/P8L2mc2WIF

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 22, 2025

READ MORE: Rubio Sidesteps J6 Pardons by Declaring ‘I Work for Donald J. Trump’

With a stroke of a pen, President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order on Tuesday that overturned government policies going back six decades that banned discrimination and required affirmative action by federal contractors. This order canceled directives established by previous orders, including those issued by Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Barack Obama. The move, executed late Tuesday, came just a day after President Trump rescinded executive orders requiring diversity and affirmative action in the federal workplace.

In 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed Executive Order 11246, banning federal contractors “from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin,” according to the U.S. Department of Labor, which was charged with ensuring its compliance. Until President Trump rescinded it on Tuesday, EO11246 also required “contractors to take affirmative action to ensure that equal opportunity is provided in all aspects of their employment.”

President Barack Obama in 2014 amended that order via Executive Order 13672, which added “sexual orientation or gender identity” to the list of protected classes.

In his Tuesday executive order, “Trump said the OFCCP [Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs] must immediately stop promoting diversity and affirmative action, and cease ‘allowing or encouraging’ contractors and subcontractors to engage in ‘workforce balancing’ based on race, sex, color, religion, national origin, and ‘sexual preference,'” according to Bloomberg Law.

READ MORE: ‘Hunting Grounds’: Trump Cancels Biden Ban on ICE Arrests at Schools, Churches, Hospitals

“Trump has jumped into action in weakening diversity, equity, and inclusion policies since his inauguration. He already signed a pair of executive orders on Jan. 20 that eliminated DEI programs within the federal government and restricted the definition of ‘gender’ to male and female,” Bloomberg reported. “Trump’s sweeping new order Tuesday also aimed to ‘encourage’ private-sector companies to end ‘illegal’ DEI programs by redefining them as a form of discrimination.”

Axios reported, “This takes the current pushback on diversity, equity and inclusion into the next stratosphere — abolishing decades of government standards on diversity and equal opportunity, and seeking to crackdown on the same in the private sector.”

Trump on Tuesday also effectively furloughed all employees throughout the federal government, placing them on leave with pay. It is expected that he will terminate their employment.

“The memo, issued Tuesday to heads of departments and agencies, sets a deadline of no later than 5 p.m. ET Wednesday to inform the employees that they will be put on paid administrative leave as the agencies prepare to close all DEI-related offices and programs and to remove all websites and social media accounts for such offices,” NBC News reported. “It also asks federal agencies to submit a written plan by Jan. 31 for dismissing the employees.”

“Trump signed an executive order Monday ending ‘radical and wasteful’ diversity, equity and inclusion programs in federal agencies, with DEI offices and programs being ordered to shut down.”

Trump has a history of battling government anti-discrimination regulations. His real estate business was sued in the 1970s by the U.S. Department of Justice in a racial discrimination case.

“Trump and his father fiercely fought a 1973 discrimination lawsuit brought by the Justice Department for their alleged refusal to rent apartments in predominantly white buildings to black tenants,” the Associated Press reported in a 2016 fact check. “Testimony showed that the applications filed by black apartment seekers were marked with a ‘C’ for ‘colored.’ A settlement that ended the lawsuit did not require the Trumps to explicitly acknowledge that discrimination had occurred — but the government’s description of the settlement said Trump and his father had ‘failed and neglected’ to comply with the Fair Housing Act.”

READ MORE: Rubio Sidesteps J6 Pardons by Declaring ‘I Work for Donald J. Trump’

Constitutional law professor and political scientist Anthony Michael Kreis on Wednesday called LBJ’s EO11246 “a fundamental piece of the civil rights canon in American law.”

“The symbolism” in Trump revoking the order, “is huge,” he added.

Last night, POTUS revoked EO11246 signed by LBJ in 1965, mandating equal opportunities by federal contractors. While this EO had broader sweep in 1965 given past limits on Title VII, it has been a fundamental piece of the civil rights canon in American law. The symbolism is huge. pic.twitter.com/OUA2YuRXKf

— Anthony Michael Kreis (@AnthonyMKreis) January 22, 2025

“The phrase ‘affirmative action’ was used by JFK in a 1961 order on equal employment. Johnson followed it with this order, which survived six Republican presidents — including Trump’s first term,” noted ABC News Radio’s Steven Portnoy. “He revoked it last night.”

“The rollback of civil rights intensifies. For almost six decades, Executive Order 11246 (signed by LBJ in 1965) forbade federal contractors and vendors to discriminate by race, color, national origin, religion, sex, etc. This morning, the president revoked it,” commented Tom Sugrue, a Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and History.

Laurence Tribe, the noted constitutional law scholar and retired Harvard Law professor, observed: “There goes six decades of progress toward justice begun by LBJ.”

Nicholas Sarwark, former Chair of the Libertarian National Committee, noted: “One of the goals of MAGA is to repeal the civil rights era, making segregation, discrimination, and voter suppression legal and deny people their rights under the Constitution and the laws of the United States. Will that make life better for you, your family, or your neighbors?”

At The New Republic, Malcolm Ferguson wrote: “This is a massive, regressive attack on basic policy that helps protect people from real discrimination. And it won’t lower the price of eggs.”

READ MORE: Trump Defends His TikTok Flip Flop: America Has ‘Bigger Problems’ Than Young Kids’ Privacy

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