{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=A506FEF6-8168-4FEA-B099-B0677F2020D6", "McConnell: Time To Get Serious On Border Security Policy", "2023-11-28", "2023", "2023-11", "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 the southern border crisis:\n\n\u201cAs my colleagues and I on this side of the aisle have made abundantly clear, national security begins with border security. And any serious supplemental legislation with a shot of passing the Senate in the coming weeks will have to take meaningful steps toward fixing the Biden Administration\u2019s border crisis.\n\n\u201cOn President Biden\u2019s watch, record-setting illegal migration has strained border protection facilities and personnel to their breaking point.\n\n\u201cOn this President\u2019s watch, \u2018catch-and-release\u2019 has gone from a short-sighted policy option to a dangerous first resort for a profoundly broken asylum and parole system.\n\n\u201cRight now, immigration courts are facing over 2 million pending asylum cases. That backlog has grown by 50% just since President Biden took office.\n\n\u201cThe average asylum case waits more than four years for judgment. Talk about sending the wrong signals \u2013 to legitimate asylum-seekers and to bad actors, alike.\n\n\u201cA wide, bipartisan consensus continues to acknowledge that this broken system is the central problem driving the border crisis.\n\n\u201cEven the Administration\u2019s border czar, Secretary Mayorkas, has acknowledged the way the United States handles asylum claims needs to be, \u2018reformed from top to bottom.\u2019\n\n\u201cWell Mr. President, that\u2019s exactly what Senate Republicans have been working on for weeks. Senators Lankford, Graham, Cotton, and Cornyn are trying in good faith to help DHS solve its problem by identifying policy changes that restore a measure of common sense to the way we process asylum claims and grant parole.\n\n\u201cBut at the same time, the Democratic Leader has called border security measures \u2018the biggest holdup\u2019 for passing a national security supplemental.\n\n\u201cWell, he\u2019s right about one thing. The single largest obstacle in the way of urgent resources to help Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan is Democrats\u2019 refusal to address the crisis at the southern border.\n\n\u201cNational security begins here at home. And the sooner our colleagues admit it, the sooner the Senate can move forward on the urgent business before us.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:49:58Z"]], "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=A506FEF6-8168-4FEA-B099-B0677F2020D6"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9209271520376205, "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"}