{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/thune-on-republicans-fight-to-secure-america/", "Thune on Republicans\u2019 Fight to Secure America", "2026-06-02", "2026", "2026-06", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/", "scraper", "\u201cRepublican policies are to have the back of law enforcement to ensure they have the resources, the personnel, the technology \u2013 everything they need to keep our border secure \u2013 and to ensure that our nation\u2019s laws are enforced \u2026\u201d\n\nClick here to watch the video.\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today spoke at a press conference with Senate Republican leadership:\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as delivered):\n\n\u201cLast Thursday was the 102nd anniversary of the Border Patrol in this country.\n\n\u201cAnd as we celebrate 250 years for America, I think it\u2019s interesting to also observe that we have had an agency like \u2026 Border Patrol defending our borders now for over 100 years.\n\n\u201cAnd if you think about what they\u2019ve done just in this last year, it\u2019s pretty remarkable, because what we inherited from the Biden administration was the most open border that we\u2019ve ever seen \u2013 literally millions of people crawling, pouring across the border, literally every single year, illegally.\n\n\u201cAnd in a year\u2019s time, Border Patrol has completely cleaned that up, to the point, as, I think it was the month of April, there was an entire year where there hadn\u2019t been a single illegal released into the country.\n\n\u201cAnd so a truly remarkable record and a tribute to the men and women, the dedicated men and women who make the Border Patrol work.\n\n\u201cAnd Rodney Scott, the commissioner, has said that the mission of the Border Patrol has never changed; what has changed is that now their members, their agents, are able to do their jobs, the jobs that lawfully we ask them to do.\n\n\u201cAnd so, tremendous change from one administration to the other, literally, in the time span of a year, Border Patrol has done just a truly incredible job of securing our southern border.\n\n\u201cAnd that\u2019s what we are committed to doing as Republicans here in the Senate, and we, as we move forward on the Secure [America] Act this week, intend to ensure that law enforcement \u2013 both ICE and CBP \u2013 have the resources they need to carry out the responsibilities that they are given by the American people.\n\n\u201cAnd I believe the American people are on our side on this issue.\n\n\u201cThey do not want to defund the police, they don\u2019t want open borders.\n\n\u201cThose are Democrat policies.\n\n\u201cRepublican policies are to have the back of law enforcement to ensure they have the resources, the personnel, the technology \u2013 everything they need to keep our border secure \u2013 and to ensure that our nation\u2019s laws are enforced, so that our communities in this country can be safe and secure for the people who live here, for our families.\u201d", 1, "2026-06-27T20:01:11Z", "2026-06-28T06:33:41Z"]], "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-on-republicans-fight-to-secure-america/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7375949062407017, "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"}