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FIRST ON FOX: House Freedom Caucus leaders are drawing battle lines as lawmakers return to Capitol Hill for the second half of the 119th Congress.
The conservative group’s board of directors is sending a seven-page letter to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., outlining proposed policy goals on a vast array of topics from American elections, to immigration, to federal spending, taking on “rogue” judges, and housing affordability.
It comes ahead of a policy forum that Johnson is hosting on Tuesday to lay out the House GOP’s agenda for 2026. Republicans are expected to huddle from 9:30am to 6pm at the Trump Kennedy Center where they’ll hear from committee leaders and President Donald Trump.
Trump’s remarks are expected to rally Republicans around passing their legislative goals for the year, but several people told Fox News Digital they also anticipate him focusing heavily on the U.S. government’s recent operation in Venezuela.
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The first policy goal listed by the Freedom Caucus is forcing the Senate to take up the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which passed the House early last year.
They’re also calling on Congress to pass legislation limiting early voting and reforming the census to only count American citizens.
On fiscal year (FY) 2026 appropriations, conservatives are calling on the House to “reduce or – at bare minimum – keep flat total federal discretionary spending levels” according to the document first obtained by Fox News Digital.
The recently-released $174 billion spending bill that the House is expected to vote on this week would reduce current funding levels for the agencies it covers if passed.
Congress has yet to release information on six of its 12 remaining spending bills, however, while lawmakers face a Jan. 30 deadline to avert a government shutdown.
The Freedom Caucus is also urging Congress to crack down on the recent fraud scandal taking over Minnesota’s social programs by eliminating “all programs exposed as rampant with fraud and place punitive measures on states such as Minnesota that have allowed rampant fraud.”
“Federal prosecutors have estimated that widespread fraud in Minnesota tied to Somali day care centers, COVID-era meal programs, housing, and special needs assistance programs alone could exceed $9 billion,” the document said. “These revelations are startling, but just a drop in the bucket for a federal government that’s estimated to lose between $233 and $521 billion annually to fraud, according to government watchdog agencies.”
The document called for the denaturalization and deportation of “anyone who has committed fraud against the American taxpayer,” specifically naming Minnesota’s Somali community, though doing so would likely require court intervention.
Conservatives’ policy roadmap also called on Congress to “freeze all immigration to the U.S., except for (very) temporary tourist visas” for a temporary amount of time in order to revamp the U.S. immigration system as a whole.
In a section called “Stop Rogue, Activist Judges,” the House Freedom Caucus urged the House to move forward on impeaching U.S. Federal Judge James Boasberg “such as Judge Deborah Boardman, for reducing the sentence of a man who plotted and took steps to kill a Supreme Court Justice due to her indefensible views about transgenderism.”
An earlier push by conservatives to impeach Boasberg failed to gain traction among the wider House GOP conference, though the chamber passed “The No Rogue Rulings Act” to limit the ability of district judges like Boasberg to issue nationwide injunctions.
The policy roadmap also called to radically shift America’s global priorities by completely removing the U.S. from the United Nations and halting all funding to the international body.
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“The UN is openly hostile to the United States, yet we remain its biggest source of funding. President Trump has significantly reduced wasteful spending on dangerous UN entities like UNRWA, and now Congress should go even further by enacting legislation such as H.R. 1498, the DEFUND Act, to completely withdraw the United States from the United Nations (UN) and end all funding and participation,” the passage read.
Another section calls for banning stock trading for members of Congress, which Johnson said he would be in favor of last year.
The push to ban stock trading has gained rare bipartisan support among both Republicans and Democrats, but no such bill has yet seen a House floor vote.
Banning Sharia Law in the U.S. is also listed as one of the group’s policy goals, an effort that’s been led by Texas-based Freedom Caucus members like Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Keith Self, R-Texas, so far this Congress.
While it was founded as a group that was frequently adversarial to Republican leaders for not being conservative enough, the House Freedom Caucus has gradually gained influence within the House GOP during the 119th Congress.
Its chairman, Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., has frequently stood alongside Johnson in his push for conservative legislative goals.
Johnson notably spoke at the group’s 10th anniversary celebration late last year. Harris and Roy also made a public show of unity alongside House GOP leaders during the recent government shutdown.
Republicans are going into this year, however, grappling with a razor-thin House majority and what’s expected to be a tough November election cycle.
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