{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://clayhiggins.house.gov/2017/12/08/higgins-introduces-bill-combat-terrorist-threats/", "Higgins Introduces Bill to Combat Terrorist Threats", "2017-12-08", "2017", "2017-12", "Republican", "House", "LA", "Clay Higgins", "H001077", "clayhiggins.house.gov", "clayhiggins", "https://clayhiggins.house.gov/category/press-releases/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 As part of his work on the Task Force on Denying Terrorists Entry into the United States, Congressman Clay Higgins (R-LA) has introduced H.R. 4564, the Post-Caliphate Threat Assessment Act of 2017, which would help with identification and response to regions displaying a high level of terrorist activity.\n\nThe bill would require the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Secretary of State, and the Director of National Intelligence to issue a detailed report of terrorist movements and activity hotbeds to Congress. More specifically, the report would include analysis of the countries of origin, intended destinations, and means of travel utilized by terrorist fighters as well as an in-depth documentation of terrorist activity in Iraq and Syria.\n\nThe bill is being cosponsored by Reps. Michael McCaul (R-TX), John Katko (R-NY), Mike Gallagher (R-WI), John Rutherford (R-FL), and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA).\n\nCongressman Higgins issued the following statement:\n\n\u201cWeakness of the Obama-era Executive Branch and State Department, and the associated alarming decline of our military, as President Obama coerced $93.2 billion in cuts to Department of Defense spending over 8 years, has brought great peril upon the world. Radical Islamic terrorists have exploited the power vacuum in the Middle East to terrorize and attack the free world from the shadows. These cowardly terrorist attacks are increasingly being carried out by \u2018foreign fighters\u2019\u2026jihadist terrorists who have left the caliphate or their homeland, traveling abroad to radicalize others and to coordinate specific acts of terror and \u2018lone-wolf\u2019 jihadist attacks. My bill identifies terrorist fighters and the tactics they utilize to gain entry to the United States. We must identify and destroy this evil, while also bolstering our own security mechanisms to protect our homeland. The threats facing our nation are rapidly evolving and so must our efforts to defeat them.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T22:19:19Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://clayhiggins.house.gov/2017/12/08/higgins-introduces-bill-combat-terrorist-threats/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.52669008821249, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}