{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://poliquin.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/protecting-our-homeland", "Protecting Our Homeland", "2015-12-09", "2015", "2015-12", "Republican", "House", "ME", "Bruce Poliquin", "P000611", "poliquin.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "WASHINGTON  Yesterday, Maines Second District Congressman, Bruce Poliquin, voted for a bill that will significantly strengthen U.S. visa policies to ensure that necessary mechanisms are in place to prevent terrorists from exploiting our Nations travel and customs rules. Congressman Poliquin released the following statement:\n\nAs a proud cosponsor of this bipartisan and commonsense legislation, I am very pleased to see the House pass this measure to dramatically strengthen our Nations visa program and to protect our homeland, said Congressman Poliquin.\n\nCurrently, citizens from 38 different countries are able to visit the United States for a 90 day period using only a passport. No additional screening is required at American embassies to receive visas. This makes it impossible to track these individuals if they stay over 90 days, and poses a major threat to our national security.\n\nWe certainly still want to welcome business travelers and tourists to the United States, who contribute $220 billion and more than 1 million jobs each year to the U.S. economy through purchases of plane tickets, hotels, meals and so on. This bill, which I cosponsored, will cancel visa waivers for countries that do not share their intelligence data for potential terrorists with the FBI, do not screen travelers against INTERPOL criminal and suspected terrorist databases, and do not issue their citizens with biometric passports which cannot be counterfeited.\n\nWith the serious and growing threats from radical terrorist groups that our Nation faces today, we must act to keep our families and communities safe. This is a strong step in protecting our homeland.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "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://poliquin.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/protecting-our-homeland"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5198648907244205, "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"}