{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.ronjohnson.senate.gov/2023/11/icymi-sen-johnson-joins-gop-lawmakers-in-press-conference-calling-for-any-ukraine-support-bill-to-be-contingent-on-securing-the-southern-border", "ICYMI: Sen. Johnson Joins GOP Lawmakers in Press Conference Calling for Any Ukraine Support Bill to be Contingent on Securing the Southern Border", "2023-11-30", "2023", "2023-11", "Republican", "Senate", "WI", "Ron Johnson", "J000293", "www.ronjohnson.senate.gov", "ronjohnson", "https://www.ronjohnson.senate.gov/press-releases", "scraper", "\u201cWe need to make any funds that go to Ukraine contingent on the administration actually reducing the number of migrants that are being dispersed in America\u201d\n\nWASHINGTON \u2013 On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, joined U.S. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Senate GOP colleagues, and members of the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) in a joint press conference calling for Ukraine funding to be contingent on actually securing the southern border. Sen. Johnson emphasized the clear and present danger that President Biden\u2019s open border poses to America, and he urged Senate Republicans to deny cloture to any spending bill that does not include hard metrics for dramatically reducing the flow of illegal migrants.\n\n\u201cBiden\u2019s open border is a clear and present danger to America,\u201d said Sen. Johnson. \u201cAnd no matter what we pass legislatively, we can\u2019t trust the president and his administration, to faithfully execute that law. So we have one leverage point here. The administration wants funding for Ukraine. We need to use that leverage point.\u201d\n\nWatch the senator\u2019s full remarks here.\n\nOn the significance of House and Senate conservatives working together on spending issues\n\n\u201cI want to thank all of our conservative House colleagues for trekking over here to the Senate. Not only today, but consistently over the last year, meeting with conservatives in the Senate, trying to resolve and fix some of these issues. I\u2019ll point out, it\u2019s those meetings that resulted in, for example, us getting through the whole debt ceiling crisis. You\u2019ll remember it was the House Freedom Caucus that proposed a piece of legislation, and then compromised with the House colleagues and offered the Senate a pretty commonsense piece of legislation that again, got us past that. So, again, we\u2019re trying to lead in this instance as well. Just real quick on this chart, before I put up the border chart, I keep playing with the numbers, I\u2019m an accountant, and I thought this was pretty simple, pretty interesting. When you take a look at what we passed in terms of budget authority over the last four years, it was $5.6 trillion, but we outlayed $6.6 trillion\u2026 It is completely out-of-control.\u201d\n\nOn the clear and present danger at the southern border\n\n\u201cIt is unfortunate, and I completely agree with what the House has passed in terms of, H.R. 2, that type of language, in the hands of a president that actually wanted to secure the border, in the hands of an administration that would faithfully execute the laws passed by Congress, H.R. 2 would work, but we don\u2019t have that with this administration. Our open border, Biden\u2019s open border, is a clear and present danger to America, and no matter what we pass legislatively, we can\u2019t trust the president and his administration to faithfully execute that law.\n\n\u201c\u2026Now, since this administration has started, there\u2019s been about over 6 million people, at least 6 million, 1.7 million of that are detected gotaways. We have no idea who these people are or where they are located. We really don\u2019t know where the other 5.3 million people are,the ones who were encountered, processed, and dispersed. This is completely out-of-control. You have Hamas now calling for days of rage. Do you think in that 1.7 million or the overall 6 million, there may be a bad person or two? It\u2019s a clear and present danger.\u201d\n\nOn the need for hard metrics that reduce the number of illegal migrants dispersed in America\n\n\u201cSo we have one leverage point here. The administration wants funding for Ukraine. We need to use that leverage point, and we need to make any funds that go to Ukraine contingent on the administration actually reducing the number of migrants that are being dispersed in America.\n\n\u201c\u2026So, what the Senate must insist on is if they take up a supplemental, if they\u2019re looking at funding for Ukraine, Republicans in the Senate must hold firm and deny cloture on any bill that doesn\u2019t include benchmarks, hard metrics, and again, the metric needs to be number of migrants dispersed into America, whether, again, they\u2019re encountered, processed, and dispersed, or detectable gotaways, or any other category. And we need to deny cloture on any bill that doesn\u2019t include that hard metric. And just as an example, and you see in this chart, President Trump had to deal with the effect of DACA, the lawless actions of the Obama administration, which really sparked this multi-year border crisis, but just through sheer willpower with the current laws in place, President Trump basically secured the border in a 12-month time period. And so that\u2019s what the bill I\u2019m working on, in terms of providing metrics, again, where the Ukraine funding would be contingent on those metrics being met and certified, you would ramp that down to pretty much a secure border over 12 months.\u201d\n\nOn not allowing Biden\u2019s open border policies to continue\n\n\u201cThere is going to be one of two things that happen by next November. We\u2019re either going to secure the border or we\u2019re not going to secure it, and the Biden open border policy is going to continue. I think what we\u2019re saying is, we don\u2019t want, and we will not allow, to the best of our ability, any Republican fingerprints on anything that\u2019s going to keep the border open. We want to be part of the solution, and by the way that would be a huge favor to Democrats and Biden. We\u2019re not playing politics here. This would be actually detrimental politically to us. If we help Biden and force him to actually secure the border, that would fix one of the problems that the American people don\u2019t like his administration for. So we are about actually securing the border and nothing less than that.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-06-27T22:33:57Z"]], "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.ronjohnson.senate.gov/2023/11/icymi-sen-johnson-joins-gop-lawmakers-in-press-conference-calling-for-any-ukraine-support-bill-to-be-contingent-on-securing-the-southern-border"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.1879300475120544, "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"}