Project 2025 in Real Time: A Tracker of Implementation and Resistance

Since January 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has moved from a 900-page wish list into federal action. While not every proposal has been enacted, the White House has adopted many of its core prescriptions through executive orders, staffing changes, and agency directives. Courts, unions, and state governments have already slowed or blocked key parts. Below is a map of what has been done, when, and exactly where it appears in the Project 2025 playbook.

What’s Been Implemented (so far):

Civil Service Control (“Schedule F” Revival)

• Project 2025 Reference: Mandate for Leadership 2025, Chapter 1: “Taking the Reins of the Executive Branch,” pp. 7–12. Calls for stripping job protections from “policy-determining” federal staff.

  
  

• Action: On January 20, 2025, the President signed the order Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions. It reclassified tens of thousands of civil servants into at-will categories.

  
  

• Status: Active, but under lawsuit from the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).

Government-wide Rollback of DEI

• Project 2025 Reference: Chapter 2: “End the DEI Bureaucracy,” pp. 35–41. Recommends dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion programs across agencies and contractors.

  
  

• Action:

  
  

  • January 20, 2025: Order Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs.

  • January 21, 2025: Order Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.

  • Federal agencies immediately began scrubbing DEI content from websites.

  
  

• Status: Implementation ongoing.

Redefining Sex in Federal Law

• Project 2025 Reference: Chapter 5: “Family Policy,” pp. 120–128. Calls for recognizing sex strictly as biological and reversing expanded gender definitions.

  
  

• Action: On January 20, 2025, the order Defending Women and Girls by Restoring Biological Truth in Federal Law and Policy eliminated non-binary gender markers on federal IDs and documents.

  
  

• Status: Active.

Immigration and Refugees

• Project 2025 Reference: Chapter 6: “Immigration,” pp. 145–160. Advocates mass enforcement, ending sanctuary policies, and restricting humanitarian admissions.

  
  

• Action:

  
  

  • January 20, 2025: Order Protecting the American People Against Invasion.

  • January 20, 2025: Order Realigning the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) — suspending refugee admissions.

  • April 28, 2025: Order Protecting American Communities from Criminal Aliens.

  
  

• Status: Enforcement steps active; refugee suspension tied up in court.

Energy and Deregulation

• Project 2025 Reference: Chapter 9: “Energy and Environment,” pp. 240–252. Calls for ending climate regulations, prioritizing fossil fuels, and “sunsetting” restrictive rules.

• Action:

  
  

  • January 20, 2025: Order Unleashing American Energy.

  • January 20, 2025: Order Zero-Based Regulatory Budgeting.

  • February 10, 2025: OMB issued guidance to agencies on implementing the regulatory budget.

  • March 12, 2025: EPA announced “the biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history.”

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• Status: Active, with rulemakings in process.

What’s Been Held Up in Court

Anti-DEI Orders (Contractors and Grantees)

• Project 2025 Reference: Chapter 2, pp. 38–39 — “End DEI in federal grants and contracting.”

• Action: The January 21, 2025 DEI order imposed strict bans on contractors and grantees.

• Court Status: On February 21, 2025, the District of Maryland issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement against contractors while lawsuits proceed.

Civil Service Reclassification

• Project 2025 Reference: Chapter 1, pp. 10–12 — “Reassert presidential control of personnel.”

• Action: The January 20, 2025 civil service order is live.

• Court Status: The NTEU filed suit on January 21, 2025. Case ongoing; wide-scale reclassification slowed.

Refugee Admissions Suspension

• Project 2025 Reference: Chapter 6, pp. 149–150 — “End mass refugee inflows.”

• Action: The January 20, 2025 order halted new refugee processing.

• Court Status: Multiple challenges filed in late January 2025; federal courts weighing scope and authority.

What’s Still on the Wish List

• Agency Abolitions: Heritage’s text calls for dismantling or folding the Departments of Education and Commerce, which has not yet happened.

• Expanded Social Policy: Proposals for obscenity crackdowns and broader LGBTQ restrictions remain on paper.

• Legislative Agenda: Many tax, entitlement, and judicial reforms require Congress, and are not yet enacted.

Why Does This Matter?

The administration has not copied Project 2025 word-for-word, but the core playbook is guiding policy: politicize the civil service, erase DEI, narrow definitions of sex and gender, tighten borders, and deregulate energy. Courts are now the key brake. For journalists, organizers, and everyday people, it is vital to track the gap between the blueprint and the lived implementation — because what hasn’t moved yet is still on the table.