It would be Donald Trump I swear He becomes the forty-seventh president of the United States on Monday. On his first day in the White House, he is expected to begin signing several executive orders as part of his order 100 order planWhich he revealed to Senate Republicans on January 8.

The executive orders will cover a range of topics, including border security, immigration, domestic energy production and presidential pardons.

In this explainer, Al Jazeera reviews 236 years of US presidential executive orders, and looks at what Trump is likely to do on his first day in office.

What is an executive order?

An executive order is an official directive issued by the President of the United States to administer the federal government. Although this law has the force of law, it does not require congressional approval.

Executive orders apply to federal institutions and agencies, for example, the Department of Homeland Security has been assigned a construction mission United States and Mexico The border wall through one of these directives.

It cannot be used to create new laws and can be invalidated if found to be unconstitutional; Congress can pass legislation to override them.

Executive orders are commonplace on a new president’s first day in office and set the tone and priorities for his administration.

Executive orders throughout history

Executive orders have been an essential tool used by US presidents to change policies without having to go through Congress. Over the course of 236 years – from 1789 to 2025 – 46 US presidents issued at least 15,902 executive orders, with an average of 67 orders per year.

The first executive order was issued by the first president, George Washington, in 1789. In the antebellum era (1789-1861), presidents issued very few orders, averaging zero to four per term, reflecting the federal role Limited. During the Civil War and Reconstruction Era (1861-1877), the number of orders increased, with Abraham Lincoln issuing 48 orders during the Civil War, and Ulysses S. Grant reaching 217 orders.

Between 1897 and 1929, there was a sharp rise in orders, led by Theodore Roosevelt (1,081 orders) and Woodrow Wilson (1,803 orders) during World War I.

Franklin Roosevelt set a record by issuing 3,721 executive orders from 1933 to 1945, primarily to address the challenges of the Great Depression and World War II. Many of these orders were central to his New Deal programs for economic recovery and war measures for national defense and mobilization.

After World War II, presidents issued fewer orders as Congress and the courts expanded checks on executive power.

Among the most influential presidential orders are:

• Emancipation Proclamation (1863) Lincoln ordered the abolition of slavery and the emancipation of slaves in the Confederate states.
• Executive Order No. 9066 (1942) Franklin Roosevelt’s order saw the “forced transfer of all persons deemed a threat to national security from the West Coast to ‘resettlement’ centers in the interior, resulting in the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.”
• Executive Order No. 9981 (1948) – The order issued by Harry Truman sought to end discrimination based on race, color, religion, and national origin in the US military.
• Executive Order 10924 (1961) – Introduced by John Kennedy, established the Peace Corps.
• Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (2012) – The DACA program, introduced by Barack Obama, allowed some people who entered the United States as children without legal status to obtain a two-year deferral of deportation.
• Executive Order No. 13769 (2017) – Also known as the travel ban, introduced under Trump, it restricted the entry of certain foreign nationals into the United States. It was described by many as an “Islamic ban” and it became widely known as such because the ban mostly affected Muslim-majority countries.

Who is the president who has issued the most executive orders?

Franklin Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States, issued the most executive orders during his 12-year presidency (1933-1945). He issued 3,721 orders, an average of 308 orders per year.

He was followed by Woodrow Wilson (1803 orders), Calvin Coolidge (1203), Theodore Roosevelt (1081), and Harry S. Truman (907).

Recent presidents, including Obama (276 orders), Trump (220 orders during his first term from 2017 to 2021) and Joe Biden (160 orders), had much lower averages.

Trump’s upcoming executive orders

President Trump is expected to sign a host of executive orders in his first few days in office.

According to the Associated Press news agency, his proposed list of more than 100 executive orders includes beginning mass deportations of immigrants, rolling back several of Biden’s energy policies and pardoning those arrested for their involvement in the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

Mass deportation of immigrants

Trump is expected to reimpose several controversial border measures between the United States and Mexico travel ban On Muslim-majority countries since his first term. Tom Homan, the top “border official” in the Trump administration, said that the next Republican administration will launch large-scale operations to detain and deport illegal immigrants starting from the first day of Trump’s second term.

Local energy production

Trump aims to reverse many of Biden’s climate policies, including lifting bans on offshore oil and gas drilling, rescinding his electric vehicle mandate and halting a ban on natural gas exports.

Presidential pardon

As president, Trump has the power to pardon anyone convicted in federal court. The detainees were described in Capitol riot case As “political prisoners” and “hostages”, they pledged a quick pardon upon taking office. More than 1,500 people have been federally charged with crimes ranging from trespassing to assaulting law enforcement officers.

“I’m inclined to pardon a lot of them,” Trump said on his social media platform, Truth Social. “I can’t say for every one of them, because a couple of them, maybe, got out of control.”