With 52 Days Left, House Conservatives Want Trump’s Border Rules Written Into Law Before Democrats Arrive

Fifty-two days. That’s how long Republicans still hold the House and the Senate before the new Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3, and the House Freedom Caucus spent Wednesday afternoon making sure nobody in their own party forgets it.

About a dozen members of the caucus lined up at a Capitol podium with one message, repeated by nearly every speaker: don’t go home. Stay in Washington, take the wins that are still within reach, and leave the incoming Democratic majority as little to bargain with as possible. Chairman Andy Harris of Maryland put the plan in writing on X shortly after: cut $1 trillion in spending, write President Trump’s border policies into law, reject a giant year-end spending bill and pass voter ID.

Eight items and a calendar

The caucus posted the full list itself. It reads like a to-do list taped to a refrigerator, and it’s about that blunt.

There are eight items. Pass a budget package dealing with debt, spending and tax relief. Codify the president’s border security policies and ban sanctuary cities. Fund the government at current levels with no “poison pill riders.” Pass a permitting bill so power lines, pipelines and plants can get built. Ban members of Congress from trading stocks and put term limits on them. Keep any program renewals fiscally responsible. Require voter ID in federal elections. And get as many of the president’s nominees confirmed in the Senate as possible.

The framing is defensive, and the caucus says so out loud. “They have already published their plans. They are not subtle,” the caucus wrote of Democrats. “We must not hand them the tools to do that.”

Why codifying matters

Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois made the case for the biggest item on the list. An executive order is only as permanent as the person who signs it. A future president can undo it with a pen, and a judge can freeze it with a ruling. A law passed by Congress is much harder to knock down.

“President Trump has taken bold executive action to secure the border, to stop the Green Scam and to cut wasteful spending, and so much more,” Miller said, according to The Washington Stand’s account of the press conference. “Congress now has an opportunity to make these policies permanent.” She added that Republicans “still control the House and the Senate, President Trump is still in the White House, and our work is far from over.”

She put it more simply in her own post: Republicans in both chambers “must act now to codify President Trump’s executive actions and secure our conservative victories.”

That’s a sharp point, and it’s the right one. The border numbers under this administration came from executive action and enforcement. Putting those rules into statute would mean the next Congress, or the next president, has to openly vote to tear them down instead of quietly letting them lapse.

No cots, no excuses

Rep. Keith Self of Texas gave the shortest version of the plan. “Everyone needs to stay until the work is finished,” he said. “No packing up early. Codify President Trump’s border policies. Under no circumstances, amnesty. Act fiscally responsible for once. Pass the Save America Act. Get as many of the president’s nominees through as possible.” Then he suggested bringing “the cots into both chambers and get ’er done.”

Rep. Mark Harris of North Carolina echoed him, calling it “a narrow window to pass the rest of the America First agenda, to protect the conservative wins that we’ve already secured and yes, to keep our government funded.”

Not every speaker was cheerful about how Republicans got here. Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona said Congress was “sleepwalking after we passed the Big Beautiful Bill” and that the party “needed a humbling from top to bottom.” He said he feared “we didn’t learn a d--- thing,” then closed on faith: “God is still on His throne, He is not surprised by any of this.”

Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri pointed to health care, saying the average family pays $28,000 a year in insurance premiums and that Republicans talked about fixing Obamacare for 16 years without doing it. He called the speech less “we told you so” than “you told us so,” meaning the voters.

What 52 days can actually buy

Here’s the honest math. Some of this list can move fast and some can’t. A budget package passed through reconciliation needs only a simple majority in the Senate, which is why the caucus put it first. Confirming nominees also takes only a simple majority in the Senate.

Other items run into the Senate’s 60-vote rule. The SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register and photo ID to vote, already passed the House and has stalled in the Senate. A ban on sanctuary cities and a border law would face the same wall unless enough Democrats join or Republicans change the rules, and the caucus didn’t lay out how it would clear that hurdle.

The government-funding fight may be where the caucus has the most leverage. Rejecting a big omnibus and passing bills “at current spending levels” would lock in this year’s numbers rather than hand the incoming majority a spending debate on its own terms.

The caucus has about 31 members, according to The Washington Stand, and one of its co-founders, Jim Jordan, was just chosen to lead House Republicans in the next Congress. That gives Wednesday’s list more weight inside the conference than a typical side-caucus wish list. Whether Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Leader John Thune schedule the votes is the next test, and the calendar is already running.