Hard-line conservatives in the House are mounting an uphill push to codify President Trump’s border policies, demanding a vote by July 4 and warning that policies that have significantly cut down crossings at the southern border could be easily reversed once he leaves office.

“The president has given us the most secure border that, literally, this country has ever had. We plan on keeping it, and we in Congress need to do everything we possibly can to ensure that we do keep it, and that means codifying President Trump’s executive orders,” Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) said.

Yet the push comes at a delicate time in the midterm cycle as polls show swing voters were turned off by Trump’s aggressive deportation policies. And even if it passes the House, the bill faces slim odds in the Senate, where it would need support from some Democrats to pass.

The public, confrontational stand from conservatives came during a procedural vote this week to advance a bill to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol through the rest of Trump’s term, the final step to ending the record-setting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown after Democrats had refused to fund immigration enforcement without significant reforms.

It was the kind of measure that seemed like an easy yes for conservatives in the House who have long pushed for stricter border and immigration policies. But members of the House Freedom Caucus initially withheld their votes on the measure, as they huddled with leadership on the House floor.

While the ICE and Border Patrol bill provided funding for Trump to carry out his policies for the rest of his term, it did not cement those policies in law.

The conservatives provided the votes needed to advance the legislation, they said, after getting a commitment from Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and leadership to hold a vote in the vein of H.R. 2 — the Secure the Border Act — that passed the House in 2023. They expect that bill to come to a vote by July 4.

“We’ve stopped the flow of the border, and that’s great, and we’re not releasing people. But we could have a future Biden-Mayorkas situation where that’s happening,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said, referring to the former president and his DHS secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas. 

“That shouldn’t happen again, so we should codify it. That’s the main point,” Roy said. “The bill just codifies essentially what the president is doing.”

The Secure the Border Act included measures to finish Trump’s border wall and to severely restrict access to asylum, along with other policies from Trump’s first term, like a requirement to detain all migrants or have them remain in Mexico otherwise.

Roy introduced two versions of that sweeping border and immigration bill this week: one that included a mandate for employers to use the E-Verify, the system that confirms people are eligible to work in the United States, and one that does not include the mandate. 

E-Verify concerns had complicated the bill’s passage in 2023, with the chamber ultimately adding a last-minute amendment forcing the DHS to consider the impact on food security if the agriculture sector is forced to use E-Verify.

A day after the mini-rebellion on the House floor, House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) and other members of the hard-line conservative group huddled again in the Speaker’s office to discuss their border bill push. Members in the group are confident about getting a vote by Independence Day.

But any partisan bill can face difficulties in the razor-thin House Republican majority. In 2023, no Democrats voted for the Secure the Border Act and two Republicans voted against it. One of those Republicans, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), remains in Congress.

Immigration and border enforcement has remained a top-tier issue for voters, according to an Emerson poll released this week. While 38 percent of voters said the economy was the most important issue, immigration came in third at 14 percent.

But as the administration conducted major deportation operations and the killings of Americans Alex Pretti and Renee Good by immigration enforcement officers in Minnesota as they protested ICE raids garnered national attention, Trump saw his approval ratings on his handling of immigration drop significantly compared to the start of his term.

Still, congressional Republicans see border issues as distinct from mass deportation operations. And a June poll from Cygnal found that voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on immigration issues.

Moderate Republicans and those in swing seats so far are not lodging much pushback to the idea of voting for a border bill in the coming weeks.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), a swing-seat Republican with an independent streak, said he would have to take a look at the bill that the Freedom Caucus is pushing before committing to vote for it, but he noted he supported it in the last Congress.

The bigger concern for Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), another swing-seat member who represents an agricultural district, was having enough time on the congressional schedule for other priorities.

“I supported H.R. 2, I voted for it every time that we had it up, but we have a finite number of days to pass bills and do stuff when we got some very important stuff we got to do,” Miller-Meeks told Punchbowl News, noting that Congress still has to reauthorize the nation’s foreign spy powers.

There is also a major question about whether the bill would see any action in the Senate — where it languished for the rest of the last Congress after passing the House. It takes 60 votes, requiring support from at least seven Democrats, to advance most legislation; and Republicans in the upper chamber have been repeatedly clashing with the president.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), though, downplayed the idea of abandoning a push to codify Trump’s border policies due to difficulties in the Senate.

“The important thing is that the American people know that we did something during this Congress to secure the border and put into law the president’s agenda that he ran on that people voted for,” Perry said. “They don’t want to hear that, ‘Well, the Senate won’t take it up or anything.’ You know what? The only way to find out if the Senate’s going to take something up is to send them something.”

Sudiksha Kochi contributed.