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58 of Trump’s Executive Orders a Democratic Congress could reverse next year
President Donald Trump has used executive orders like a sledgehammer since returning to the White House, but his favored tool for wielding power could soon lose its weight if Democrats take control of Congress.
Trump has issued nearly 300 executive orders since January 2025, more than any president has in a two-year span since Harry Truman. Of those, 35 have been reversed following successful lawsuits — like his attempt to end birthright citizenship — while a handful of others are purely performative, such as an order to end nonexistent vaccine requirements. At least 58 currently in effect fall under Congress’ oversight power.
“It depends on what was in any given executive order,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen. “If there was a plan to spend money that was part of it, Congress can try to use the appropriations process to stymie particular orders. There’s the possibility, if there is complete control of Congress, to pass things. But unfortunately, the truth of the next Congress is that Trump will still be here for at least two years. In those two years, it will be quite hard to pass things that he would sign that undoes his own executive orders.”
Not content to wait on Congress, Gilbert’s organization has focused on prodding the judicial branch to provide a check on the presidency. Public Citizen has filed over 50 lawsuits against the Trump administration, alleging illegal executive action involving the firing of federal workers, stripping away protections for immigrants, and unlawful construction of Trump’s vanity projects, among other things.
Lawsuits have had mixed success, however, leaving opportunities for the legislative branch to reclaim some of its power. Even with the threat of a veto, a Democratic-majority Congress could force Trump to defend his orders and use that leverage as a bargaining chip to pass other legislation.
The 58 at-risk executive orders fall into four categories: the Congressional Review Act, emergency declarations, the defense budget, and the power of the purse.
The Congressional Review Act: 7
While the president can order executive agencies to follow rules at his discretion, Congress can pass legislation to overturn those rules under the Congressional Review Act (CRA). The process cannot be filibustered, but it can only be used to target rules that have been added to the federal registrar within 60 days, excluding weekends, holidays, and days when either chamber isn’t in session.
The narrow scope of the CRA does limit which executive orders it can neuter, but if utilized quickly, it could reverse Trump’s restrictions on student loan forgiveness for public service employees, prevent citizenship verification at polling places, and restore energy and environmental regulations.
Emergency Declarations: 11
The United States is currently operating under 51 different states of emergency, 11 of which Trump has declared during his second term. These designations have allowed his administration to get around congressional authorization for its economic and military actions around the world. But any emergency declaration can be terminated by a simple majority in Congress, potentially providing a pathway to quickly end the Iran War, Trump’s deadly embargoes against Cuba, and the well-documented human rights violations committed daily by ICE.
Defense Budget: 14
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), once a piece of legislation that passed quickly with near-unanimous support, has now become a partisan albatross with a hefty price tag hanging around Congress’ neck. The Senate is currently stuck in a beleaguered six-month process of approving the Trump administration’s request for a $1.5 trillion defense budget — roughly a half-a-trillion increase from the current budget, $860 billion more than during Trump’s first term, and $1 trillion more than when the US launched its war on terror.
More than a dozen of Trump’s executive orders require congressional funding or approval that would be part of the NDAA, including a current provision in the stalled bill to officially rename the Department of Defense to the Department of War. Unlike CRA bills, the defense budget can be stopped by way of filibuster, but only temporarily, as it’s one of the few things Congress is required to pass.
Power of the Purse: 26
Congress controls the nation’s budget — it decides where taxpayer dollars are spent, and who benefits. Nearly 30 of Trump’s executive orders direct agencies in his administration to spend money in specific ways, with little or no mechanism for oversight or accountability. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), who would chair the House Oversight Committee should Democrats take control of the House, has promised to hold public hearings to investigate suspicious spending, and any evidence discovered could lead to restrictions on agency budgets.
“Oversight Democrats will be able to set the committee’s agenda, launch investigations, call witnesses to demand answers and compel information through subpoenas if needed,” Garcia wrote in an op-ed for MS NOW. “As the primary oversight committee of the House, we will fight to shine a light on the blatant corruption we’re seeing in this country, from the White House’s cover-up of the Epstein files to immigration enforcement misconduct. And we will hold those responsible to account.”
What’s really happening at the Supreme Court?
Join COURIER and Americans United on October 20 for Weaponizing Faith: Christian Nationalism at the Supreme Court. Featuring Rachel Laser, Stasha M. Rhodes, Michael Podhorzer, and moderator Lisa Graves, this panel uncovers how political allies are reshaping our legal system and what we must do to reclaim it.
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Since day one of Trump’s political career, people have desperately attempted to normalize his absurd abuses of power and blatant corruption – and 10 years later, much of corporate media remains a victim of their own attempts to return to a sense of normalcy.
It’s time to stop sane-washing the insanity.
What Happened
A pair of Supreme Court decisions this week granted the Trump administration implicit permission to detain people indefinitely without bail and deport them to countries they may have never even been to.
Both practices have been standing policy for the Department of Homeland Security since early 2025, resulting in mass incarceration and at least 25,000 immigrants being sent to what’s known as a “third country” — meaning not the US, not their country of origin, but some other country that has agreed to take in migrant deportees. Lawsuits were filed to stop both practices, and lower-court judges had issued temporary injunctions to put a pause in place until the matters were resolved.
But those orders were tossed by the Supreme Court this week, giving the Trump administration permission to continue holding people indefinitely and resume third-country deportations until the justices issue a ruling, which might not come until next year.
“Today’s order does not decide that the government’s policy is lawful,” Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said in a statement. “The Court will hear that question on an expedited schedule.”
Oral arguments in both cases are scheduled to take place in December, and a slow decision could give the administration another nine months to detain and deport with impunity. As part of its argument for lifting the third-country restriction, Department of Justice lawyers said that the lower court order forced the cancellation of a deportation flight carrying about 70 people bound for three countries.
Deportations
The conservative majority has sided with the Trump administration before on its core immigration policies, allowing deportation flights to temporarily continue last year. This time around, the court said it would consider several questions, including whether the policy is lawful, whether lower courts had the authority to consider the case and issue a sweeping block, and other issues the government deems appropriate.
Under a series of often-secret agreements, the administration has deported some 25,000 people to more than two dozen countries, from Liberia to Guyana. The vast majority have been sent to Mexico.
Trump’s Republican administration has said that it sends people with final deportation orders to third countries when they can’t be returned to their home countries or those governments won’t accept them. including people who have criminal convictions. According to federal attorneys, the third country governments provide assurances that deportees won’t be persecuted or tortured.
Attorney General Todd Blanche called the policy “an entirely lawful and critical tool for immigration enforcement” in a social media post.
Some migrants, though, have found themselves imprisoned in countries they’d never heard of before arriving. Others face serious safety risks and are left with little choice but to return to the home countries they were fleeing. Many have no criminal convictions and have been found to be at risk of torture or persecution, attorneys for the immigrants said.
Indefinite Detainment
The justices will also decide whether immigrants who have been living in the US have a right to a hearing to determine whether they should remain detained while challenging their possible deportation.
The case will test a key pillar of the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration agenda.
Most appeals courts to consider the issue have found that federal law prohibits detaining immigrants, including those living in the US illegally, without a bond hearing. Those decisions conflict with rulings from the 5th and 8th circuits, which held that immigrants accused of illegally entering and remaining in the US must be detained while their deportation cases are pending.
The Trump administration says its new mandatory detention policy is legal under a 1996 immigration law. The change departs from the practices of prior administrations, which typically allowed most noncitizens without criminal records to request a bond hearing if they were arrested away from the border.
*The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Attempts to Sanewash
SCOTUS allows Trump Administration to resume rapid deportations
Another Victory for Trump: He Can Continue with the Deportations of Immigrants
Supreme Court to decide Trump’s mandatory detention policy for immigrants nationwide
Far-Right Spin
Supreme Court Shuts Down Judge Murphy Trying to Block Deportation of Rapists and Murderers
Supreme Court to take up key Trump immigration case that could restart ‘catch and release’
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