Donald J. Trump’s victory over former Vice President Kamala Harris on Nov. 5, 2024, made him the second-ever U.S. President to serve two non-consecutive terms. In the first year since American voters elected Trump to his second term as president, his administration has passed policy changes that have received both praise and intense backlash nationwide.

Hours after Chief Justice John Roberts swore him into office as the 47th president of the United States on Jan. 20, Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. The agreement is a legally binding international treaty that aims to combat climate change by limiting global warming and holding countries accountable for their greenhouse gas emissions. Trump’s decision to withdraw from the agreement came just 10 days after the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced 2024 was the warmest year on record. 

“We have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have — the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on earth — and we are going to use it,” Trump said in his inaugural address. Burning fossil fuels like oil and gas is a known contributor to global warming. 

Trump withdrew from the climate agreement during his first term in 2020, before Biden quickly rejoined the agreement. “It does match my expectations pretty well. … [Trump] is already pretending to deny climate change,” alum Vaani Chandra ’25 said. “The mental gymnastics are almost impressive.”

The day after his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order declaring that the federal government would recognize only two sexes – male and female – and declaring gender and sex to be synonymous. “Agencies will cease pretending that men can be women and women can be men when enforcing laws that protect against sex discrimination,” the White House wrote on its website. 

LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, including the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) — the largest LGBTQ+ political lobbying organization in the United States — quickly responded to the order. “We refuse to back down or be intimidated. We are not going anywhere, and we will fight back against these harmful provisions with everything we’ve got,” HRC president Kelley Robinson said in an interview with The Guardian. 

 The executive order affected many students at Urban, more than 5% of whom identify as gender diverse. “Everybody was angry that somehow [the order] had been allowed to happen,” said Chandra, who identifies as transgender. “You stopped asking people if they were doing good or hoping that their week had been going well, and instead, [you were] just like, ‘I hope you are managing.’”

On June 4, Trump banned travelers from 12 countries from entering the United States, citing national security concerns. The policy garnered widespread criticism from immigrant advocacy groups, student organizations and Democratic leaders.

“Trump’s expanded ban on travelers from around the world will not improve our national security and will only further isolate the U.S. from the rest of [the] world,” California Senator Adam Schiff wrote in an X post. “Bigotry is not a national security strategy.” 

Urban and San Francisco communities also criticized this order. “These blatant examples of Trump overstepping his boundaries as president [have]gotten a lot of people thinking and being a lot more critical,” history teacher Kaylah Breiz ’17. “I think a lot of people are starting to really open [their] eyes.”

The impacts of Trump’s first year span beyond executive orders in Congress as well. Disagreement between Republican and Democratic leaders over concerns about this year’s proposed federal budget and the Affordable Healthcare Act led to the longest government shutdown in United States history. 

As a result of the shutdown, about 42 million Americans lost access to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits on Nov. 1. Typically, SNAP provides eligible low-income households with monthly assistance for purchasing food and resources at authorized retailers. Nearly one in eight Americans depends on SNAP, and the amount of assistance SNAP provides is determined by household size and income. 

According to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average household qualifying for SNAP received about $350 in SNAP food stamps per month as of May. This amounted to the government spending more than $100.3 billion, about 1.5% of all federal spending, on the SNAP program. 

On Nov. 3, the Trump Administration announced it would offer low-income American households with roughly half of SNAP funding in federal aid. At the time of reporting, the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on a bill that would potentially end the government shutdown and therefore fully fund SNAP once again.

Many of Trump’s policy changes disproportionately affect lower-income Americans. “Trump has shown that he doesn’t consider the working class of America as much as he should,” Emma Spivak ’27 said. “Many of the people who voted for Trump are working-class Republicans who do struggle with their socioeconomic status.”

Beyond economic policies, Trump has also targeted newspapers and other journalistic media. Under Trump’s directive, on Oct. 15 the Pentagon began limiting media coverage of unauthorized political topics in mid-October. Journalists are barred from entering the Pentagon unless they are reporting on information officially approved by the Department of Defense. 

“Every other administration I am familiar with had a more open relationship with the media. They did not require the signing of this pledge of which many believe runs counter to the First Amendment,” Mick Mulroy, Belfer Center fellow and former Defense official, said in an interview with the Harvard John F. Kennedy School.

Journalists from major news outlets such as the New York Times, BBC, AP News, Fox News and CNN condemned the new guidelines, and many reporters turned in their Pentagon access badges. Fox News analyst Jack Keane said, “They want to spoon-feed information to the journalist. … That’s not journalism.”

In addition, during Trump’s presidency, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began to deport both documented and undocumented immigrants. “A lot of people are choosing to self-deport out of fear of being targeted and then arrested [by ICE],” Breiz said. “Who knows what would happen to you if you were detained by ICE?” 

Over the past several months, Trump has deployed the National Guard to five left-leaning U.S. cities — Los Angeles, Memphis, Portland, Chicago and Washington, D.C. — to aid ICE officers in detaining undocumented immigrants. In doing so, Trump bypassed state governors’ authority to control the National Guard’s deployment in their respective states. He invoked a specific part of the U.S. code on Armed Services that allows federal deployment of the National Guard under extreme circumstances where there is risk of rebellion.

Chandra, who lives in Los Angeles, reflected on how these immigration policies affect people’s day-to-day lives. “Just a week ago, the city was hosting a Dia de los Muertos event,” they said. “There was a little warning under [the poster saying,] ‘Just remember, this is an event that is being held to center people who are Mexican. ICE might show up. Be prepared [and] be safe.’”

Record numbers of people across the country have protested Trump’s new policies and reforms. According to a Statista article, the number of protests in Trump’s second term is more than triple the amount during his first term.

Trump’s actions have always been controversial, especially at Urban. “I was a senior when Trump was elected president [in 2016], and there was a whole walkout,” Breiz said.” [Urban’s] never really been a community or place that has supported Trump.”