{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.lgraham.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=7A36D5EE-FCD0-4078-BCF8-72F4367D199C", "ICYMI: Graham Discusses Border Surge, Afghanistan, And More", "2021-09-21", "2021", "2021-09", "Republican", "Senate", "SC", "Lindsey Graham", "G000359", "www.lgraham.senate.gov", "graham", "https://www.lgraham.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today joined Fox & Friends to discuss the latest news on the border crisis, Afghanistan, and upcoming budget reconciliation.\n\nBORDER CRISIS:\n\nGRAHAM: \u201cEverybody\u2019s coming to seek asylum. If you said you can\u2019t apply for asylum in the United States \u2013 we no longer accept asylum claims inside the country \u2013 they'd all stop coming. Trump did that and it went to a 45 year low...If you\u2019re from the Triangle Countries, you have to apply there. If you come from some other place, we send you back to Mexico, you sit in Mexico, you make your application, you can\u2019t come here until your hearing which is three or four years down the road. It would all stop overnight. Nobody\u2019s going pay a bunch of money to sit in Mexico for five years.\u201dhttps://youtu.be/RlHYPMroFJ4?t=12\n\nGRAHAM: \u201cThere\u2019s a perfect storm brewing \u2013 the chaos in the Middle East is going to come to us here at home through the border if we don't change soon. How easy would it be for a terrorist group to hire some cartel to take them into the United States through the southern border, get in the middle of this humanity. Like the Haitians \u2013 they're not sending Haitians back, they're sending men back and the women and children are staying. So nothing changes until you change our asylum law, but I'm really worried about the narrative out there that America was defeated in Afghanistan. Every jihadist is going to Afghanistan, and there will soon be an effort to infiltrate this country through the southern border if we don't do something about it.\u201d https://youtu.be/RlHYPMroFJ4?t=113\n\nGRAHAM: \u201c[Biden] chose poorly at every turn. If he had done nothing on the border, we would be okay. He changed the remain in Mexico policy, he did away with the asylum agreements with the Triangle Countries. Guess what \u2013 we're overrun, like the Border Patrol told the [Biden] transition team in December and January. If he had left the troops at Bagram, never closed Bagram Airbase, we wouldn\u2019t have the Taliban in charge. If you keep spending money like this, we\u2019re going to have inflation through the roof. All of this is self-inflicted.\u201d https://youtu.be/RlHYPMroFJ4?t=83\n\nAFGHANISTAN:\n\nGRAHAM: \u201cAl-Qaeda and the Taliban are one in the same. There will be an effort to normalize relationships with the Taliban, it will be a disaster. Any money you pay them doesn't go to the people of Afghanistan, it goes to them, and they will give safe haven to al-Qaeda because they believe the same. They have a common purpose.\u201d https://youtu.be/RlHYPMroFJ4?t=169\n\nGRAHAM: \u201cWho in the world takes all the military out then hopes you can get the civilians out later? This is a case study on just screwing up how to withdraw from a country.\u201d https://youtu.be/RlHYPMroFJ4?t=206\n\nGRAHAM: \u201cEverybody in [Joe Biden\u2019s] circle said \u2018leave a residual force, leave the 2,500, keep Bagram. It\u2019s an insurance policy against another 9/11.\u2019 It was Joe Biden and Joe Biden alone who decided to pull all the troops out. Trump told me a couple of nights ago, he'd have kept Bagram. If you had kept Bagram and the CIA post down along the border, the Taliban could never take over and al-Qaeda wouldn\u2019t come storming back like they are today. So this is \u2018General Biden\u2019 knowing more than all the generals combined. He was told by everybody to leave a residual force. It was his decision to pull the plug, just like it was in Iraq with him and Obama.\u201d https://youtu.be/RlHYPMroFJ4?t=237\n\nRECONCILIATION AND IMMIGRATION:\n\nGRAHAM: \u201cNobody is more happy about [the Senate parliamentarian\u2019s] ruling than the Democrats. If you actually put DACA legalization in a reconciliation package where you only need 50 Democratic votes, they would own legalizing probably a million people. Can you imagine the run on the border if the word get out tomorrow, \u2018hey they just gave a million people legal status, hurry on down\u2019 \u2026if you legalize one person before you secure the border and reform a broken immigration system, the run on the border will be worse than it is today.\u201d https://youtu.be/RlHYPMroFJ4?t=303\n\nWatch Full Interview Here\n\n#####", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:17:01Z"]], "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://www.lgraham.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=7A36D5EE-FCD0-4078-BCF8-72F4367D199C"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8287548553198576, "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"}