In the first hours of his second term, President Donald Trump vowed to send U.S. troops to the southern border; promised to reinstate service members who were separated for refusing to get vaccinated for COVID-19; and signed an executive order suspending a refugee program that allows Afghans to come to the United States.
The Pentagon issued a statement on Monday that it would comply with Trump’s directives.
“The Department of Defense is fully committed to carrying out the orders from our [commander in chief], and is doing so immediately under his leadership,” the statement reads.
Speaking at his inauguration on Monday, Trump vowed to “defend our country from threats and invasions” by cracking down on migrants crossing from Mexico into the United States.
“I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country,” Trump said.
The president did not specify exactly how many service members would be deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border or how they might assist law enforcement officials.
Later on Monday, Trump signed an executive order directing the defense secretary to come up with a plan within 10 days for U.S. Northern Command to, “Seal the borders and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the United States by repelling forms of invasion including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, and other criminal activities.”
Additionally, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted on Monday to advance Pete Hegseth’s nomination as defense secretary, and a full Senate vote could follow later this week.
In a separate executive order, Trump designated drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. When asked by a reporter if he would consider using U.S. Special Forces to attack the cartels in Mexico, Trump replied: “Could happen. Stranger things have happened.”
Along with promising to dispatch troops to the southern border, Trump also suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, which works to admit refugees. That means that nearly 1,660 Afghans, including family members of U.S. troops, will not be allowed to resettle in the United States for the foreseeable future, Reuters reported.
“This pause in refugee processing, set to take effect on Jan. 27, 2025, will likely freeze all cases where they stand and risks abandoning thousands of Afghan wartime allies who stood alongside U.S. servicemembers during two decades of conflict,” said Navy veteran Shawn VanDiver, founder of #AfghanEvac, a non-profit group that manages a coalition of more than 250 organizations to relocate and resettle Afghans following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
On inauguration day, Trump announced that this week he would reinstate service members who were separated for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine with full back pay. More than 8,400 service members across the military were discharged for refusing the vaccine after it became mandatory in August 2021.
The widespread opposition to the vaccination program within the military stemmed from many reasons. Some troops said they did not trust the vaccines because they were developed so quickly. Others sought religious exemptions because fetal cell lines from abortions carried out decades ago were used to develop the vaccines, even though no aborted fetal cells were in the vaccines themselves, nor were any abortions conducted to get the fetal cells needed for the vaccines, and fetal cell lines were also used to develop more than a dozen other vaccines that troops are required to get.
Officials at Fort Carson, Colorado, also found that soldiers felt that the voluntary vaccine policy afforded them “the first time I get to tell the Army, no!”
Service members’ resistance to the vaccines ultimately became a political issue, and in December 2022 Congress ordered the Defense Department to end its mandatory vaccination program.
Reinstating troops separated for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine was one of the recommendations of Project 2025, a series of policy recommendations facilitated by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.
Another of the policy blueprint’s proposals would require the Defense Department to, “Eliminate Marxist indoctrination and divisive critical race theory programs and abolish newly established diversity, equity, and inclusion offices and staff.”
During his inauguration on Monday, Trump said he would sign an executive order to end “radical political theories and social experiments” within the military, but he did not specify exactly how that would play out across the armed forces.
“It’s going to end immediately,” Trump said. “Our armed forces will be freed to focus on their sole mission: defeating America’s enemies.”
Trump subsequently rescinded more than 70 executive orders from the Biden administration, including one that reversed the Defense Department’s ban on allowing some transgender people to join the military, which was implemented during Trump’s first term. No information was immediately available about how Trump’s move will affect transgender service members.
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