{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/thune-democrats-have-made-their-choice-republicans-will-fund-border-security-despite-them/", "Thune: Democrats Have Made Their Choice; Republicans Will Fund Border Security Despite Them", "2026-05-20", "2026", "2026-05", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/", "scraper", "\u201c[D]espite Democrats\u2019 partisan games, we\u2019re still going to get the entire federal government funded. We\u2019re going to ensure our immigration laws are enforced and criminal illegal aliens are not allowed to live freely in our country.\u201d\n\nClick here to watch the video.\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor:\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as delivered):\n\n\u201cMr. President, yesterday on the floor I discussed some of our accomplishments here in the Senate, and one of those accomplishments is restoring regular order consideration of appropriation bills.\n\n\u201cUnfortunately, in fiscal year 2025, we were forced to do a full-year CR after the failures of the previous Democrat majority and the Biden administration to enact full-year bills in a timely manner.\n\n\u201cBut at the start of this year, we were on the verge of concluding an open, member-driven, and bipartisan appropriations process and passing the full complement of 12 full-year appropriations bills.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s what I said I wanted to do when Republicans took the majority last year.\n\n\u201cAnd we were about to get it done.\n\n\u201cThat is, until Democrats reneged on our bipartisan DHS funding bill \u2013 a bill, I might add, that included bipartisan reforms and money for additional body cameras for immigration enforcement.\n\n\u201cWhen they backed out of this deal, Democrats said they just needed two more weeks to negotiate additional reforms on immigration enforcement.\n\n\u201cRepublicans were willing to do that, and we began negotiations.\n\n\u201cBut then that two-week deadline came and went without much progress.\n\n\u201cAnd pretty soon it drug on into 40, 41, 42, 43, 45 days.\n\n\u201cAnd instead of agreeing to fund the Department of Homeland Security while negotiations continued, Democrats shut the department down.\n\n\u201cMeanwhile, the White House implemented reforms of its own.\n\n\u201cAnd as negotiations continued, the White House repeatedly offered Democrats a robust package of legislative reforms.\n\n\u201cBut as the weeks dragged on, it became very clear that Democrats weren\u2019t interested in reforms at all.\n\n\u201cAnd eventually, they just walked away.\n\n\u201cNow why would they do that, Mr. President?\n\n\u201cIf reforming immigration enforcement is as important as Democrats were claiming, why would Democrats choose to walk away from reforms?\n\n\u201cI suspect it\u2019s either that the reforms that the Trump administration implemented were adequate to solve the problem at hand, or \u2013 and I think this is the real reason \u2013 Democrats weren\u2019t interested in reforms at all.\n\n\u201cThey wanted a political issue.\n\n\u201cSomething that would please the far left.\n\n\u201cAnd apparently they decided that defunding law enforcement would be a winner for them.\n\n\u201cBecause that\u2019s what we are talking about here, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cDemocrats voted to defund border security.\n\n\u201cThey voted to defund immigration enforcement.\n\n\u201cNot reform, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cDefund.\n\n\u201cAnd defund completely.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s really quite shameful.\n\n\u201cA few weeks ago on the floor, the Democrat leader said that ICE and Border Patrol are two agencies that \u2018nobody respects in this country.\u2019\n\n\u201cNobody respects Border Patrol and ICE, Mr. President, those are the Democrat leader\u2019s words.\n\n\u201cApparently, the fact that there are men and women risking their lives against drug cartels and gang members doesn\u2019t merit respect from Democrats.\n\n\u201cNot only that, but Democrats apparently don\u2019t think we should have these agencies that go after criminals, stop illegal drugs from entering our country, fight human trafficking, and enforce our nation\u2019s immigration laws.\n\n\u201cAnd that last one is, I think, the real issue here, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cDo Democrats believe we should enforce our immigration laws?\n\n\u201cIt really seems like they don\u2019t.\n\n\u201cFor years now, Democrat-led cities and states have implemented sanctuary policies that prevent their law enforcement agencies from cooperating with immigration authorities.\n\n\u201cThose policies have had deadly consequences.\n\n\u201cThe murder of Laken Riley is just one example.\n\n\u201cYet Democrats still defend these misguided policies.\n\n\u201cThen, under President Biden, Democrats\u2019 embrace of open-border policies reached its zenith.\n\n\u201cThe Biden administration clearly did not believe in enforcing our immigration laws, and the result was year upon year of record-breaking illegal immigration.\n\n\u201cAs even the New York Times has reported, and I quote, \u2018After Mr. Biden became president, migrant encounters at the southern border quickly doubled, then kept rising. New arrivals overwhelmed border stations, then border towns, and eventually major cities like New York and Denver.\u2019\n\n\u201cStill, Mr. President, Democrats embrace open borders.\n\n\u201cAnd make no mistake, that is exactly what Democrats are embracing when they opt for giving no funding \u2013 zero funding \u2013 to Border Patrol and ICE.\n\n\u201cWhat they\u2019re suggesting is that we have no physical presence at our borders.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019re suggesting that we don\u2019t have law enforcement officers taking criminal illegal immigrants off of our streets.\n\n\u201cAnd I really have to wonder who they\u2019re doing this for.\n\n\u201cBecause letting illegal immigrants enter our country unchecked and allowing criminal illegal immigrants to roam free is certainly not putting the American people first.\n\n\u201cMr. President, Democrats have made their choice.\n\n\u201cThey would rather have applause from the far-left \u2018defund the police\u2019 crowd than keep the American people safe.\n\n\u201cThey would rather have a political issue this November than do their jobs.\n\n\u201cAs I say, they\u2019ve made their choice.\n\n\u201cFortunately, Republicans can fund these critical agencies without Democrats\u2019 assistance.\n\n\u201cAnd we will be moving forward with the final steps of that process shortly.\n\n\u201cMr. President, as I said at the top of my remarks, I wanted to restore regular order, bipartisan consideration of funding bills \u2013 and we were doing that.\n\n\u201cAnd despite Democrats\u2019 partisan games, we\u2019re still going to get the entire federal government funded.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re going to ensure our immigration laws are enforced and criminal illegal aliens are not allowed to live freely in our country.\n\n\u201cAnd if Democrats want to play partisan games and vote against border security, well, they\u2019re free to do that.\n\n\u201cBut Republicans are going to do our jobs and ensure that law enforcement can do theirs.\u201d", 1, "2026-06-27T20:01:11Z", "2026-06-27T22:21:02Z"]], "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.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/thune-democrats-have-made-their-choice-republicans-will-fund-border-security-despite-them/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.460167044773698, "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"}