President Biden nixed Justice Department contracts with private prisons via an executive order that he signed on Tuesday following last summer’s racial unrest.
Biden won the 2020 election, in part, due to his popularity among black Democrats. Now, he’s tackling some of their concerns voiced loudly after the death of George Floyd, a black man killed by a white police officer last Memorial Day, including their worries about the federal prison and housing systems. There are concerns in minority communities that those systems, and others, are biased against them.
Biden on Tuesday took four executive actions, including one order directing Attorney General-designate Merrick Garland not to renew Justice Department contracts with privately operated criminal detention facilities. The order doesn’t apply to those used by the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies.
“We’ve never fully lived up to the founding principles of this nation, to state the obvious, that all people are created equal,” he said during a White House signing event. “For too long, we’ve allowed a narrow, cramped view of the power of this nation to fester.”
He added criminal justice reform is “not enough.” “It has to be the business of the whole of government,” he said.
In a separate presidential memorandum, Biden asked Housing and Urban Development Secretary-designate Marcia Fudge to assess any discriminatory housing policies implemented under former President Donald Trump.
The third executive order signaled the Biden administration’s intention to better consult with Native American and Alaska Native tribes.
The last presidential memorandum condemned anti-Asian racism and xenophobia after a rise in harassment and violence during the coronavirus pandemic. The outbreak started in Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei province.
That memorandum also requested that the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force issue cultural sensitivity guidance and DOJ work with Asian American and Pacific Islander communities to prevent hate crimes.
Last Wednesday, his first day in office, Biden signed an initial order defining equity and stating that it is the federal government’s responsibility to ensure “fair, just, and impartial treatment” of every member of the public. That order also rolled back Trump’s 1776 Commission and lifted a Trump ban on diversity and inclusion training for many federal agencies, contractors, and grantees.
As part of that order, every agency has 200 days to conduct an internal review before telling the White House how it would improve their individual situations. Biden also intends to track progress through data collection, which will help the Office of Management and Budget allocate resources.
“The president has committed the whole of our government to advance racial justice and equity for all Americans,” Susan Rice, Biden’s Domestic Policy Council chief, said Tuesday during a press room briefing. “We’ll hold the federal government accountable for advancing equity for families across America.”
