{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=2D6464E0-5841-47BD-A5C3-99F123A7841A", "President Biden\u2019s Border Crisis: Record-High Crossings and Decade-Low Enforcement", "2021-10-26", "2021", "2021-10", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding border security:\n\n\u201cOne point seven million people.\n\n\u201cThat is the record-shattering number of illegal immigrants detained along our southern border in just the last 12 months. In one year, 1.7 million people tried to take advantage of the Biden Administration\u2019s intentionally unsecure border and come here illegally. The most ever recorded.\n\n\u201cThere are 11 entire states whose populations are smaller than 1.7 million.\n\n\u201cOf the 1.7 million, more than a million were single adults. That is nearly two thirds \u2014 not family units, not unaccompanied children, but adults on their own.\n\n\u201cIn many cases, this is not about escaping disaster or persecution. This is about wanting a better job in America. It\u2019s less about emergency refugees and more about economics.\n\n\u201cLegal immigration in pursuit of a better future is a core part of our country.\n\n\u201cIt reflects our values and makes us stronger. We are a generous country that wants to welcome ambitious new Americans who come the right way.\n\n\u201cBut it is beyond disingenuous for the Biden Administration to pretend that huge numbers of people who simply want better jobs are emergency refugees. Those are two different things.\n\n\u201cIn this 12-month span, authorities arrested people from 160 different countries.\n\n\u201cThink about that. The U.S. recognizes 195 countries in the entire world. Customs and Border Protection ran into people from all but 35 of them.\n\n\u201cOn numerous occasions, these people have told reporters they are coming specifically because of President Biden.\n\n\u201cHis campaign rhetoric and his policy decisions have directly created this crisis.\n\n\u201cLate last December, about a month before President Biden took office, he literally said \u2018the last thing we need\u2019 would be if his Administration pursued policy changes that caused us to, \u2018end up with 2 million people on our border.\u2019\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s how President-elect Biden himself defined failure on our border: Two million people showing up.\n\n\u201cAnd that is exactly what he has brought about.\n\n\u201cAll because of the liberal misapprehension that a weak and porous border is a compassionate border. It is not.\n\n\u201cEven now, even as President Biden faces the exact definition of failure which he laid out, the Administration won\u2019t change course.\n\n\u201cA few weeks ago, Secretary Mayorkas released radical new guidance that essentially tries to create amnesty by executive fiat.\n\n\u201cThis Mayorkas memo told ICE that, now, being in the country illegally \u2018should not alone be the basis\u2019 for making arrests. A baseline policy of no enforcement, with exceptions for certain extenuating circumstances.\n\n\u201cLast week, before the Judiciary Committee, under questioning from Senator Cornyn, even the President\u2019s own nominee to CBP had to admit that non-enforcement policies are a magnet that make the problem worse.\n\n\u201cEven before the new Mayorkas memo, over the whole last 12 months, immigration arrests in the interior of the country fell to their lowest level in more than a decade. ICE arrested half as many people this past year as they did on average in previous years.\n\n\u201cPut two and two together. CBP encounters at the border are at historic highs\u2026 but ICE enforcement is down to a decade low. It doesn\u2019t make any sense. Unless we are looking at functional amnesty through non-enforcement.\n\n\u201cBut even now, Democrats keep pushing more new policies to incentivize illegal immigration. Their next reckless taxing and spending spree proposes to double down on Democrats\u2019 new monthly welfare deposits that can flow directly to people who are here illegally.\n\n\u201cThis is a Democrat-created crisis from top to bottom.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:24:51Z"]], "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.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=2D6464E0-5841-47BD-A5C3-99F123A7841A"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8785859681665897, "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"}