{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=695CEEA2-DC87-428B-A091-955A8A99F4DF", "Thune on Republicans\u2019 Historic Investments to Secure the Border", "2025-12-09", "2025", "2025-12", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases", "scraper", "Click 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, it wasn\u2019t long ago that the southern border was in a state of chaos.\n\n\u201cDuring the Biden administration, we routinely saw hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants arriving at the border in a single month.\n\n\u201cIt was a situation that the Democrat senator from Pennsylvania likened to the population of the city of Pittsburgh showing up at the border.\n\n\u201cAnd that\u2019s to say nothing of the 1.9 million known gotaways who slipped into the country during the Biden years.\n\n\u201cOr the suspected terrorists, gang members, and other criminals who were among those coming across our open border.\n\n\u201cAnd then there was the Biden administration\u2019s catch and release approach to illegal immigration.\n\n\u201cAnd the way the Biden administration abused asylum and parole to allow individuals to take up residence in our country.\n\n\u201cMr. President, it\u2019s hard to believe that the Biden administration and Democrats allowed their border crisis to rage quite literally for years.\n\n\u201cBut they did.\n\n\u201cEven the New York Times now admits that President Biden chose not to secure the border when given the chance.\n\n\u201cThe Times reported this weekend, and I quote, \u2018[An] examination of Mr. Biden\u2019s record found that he and his closest advisers repeatedly rebuffed recommendations that could have addressed the border crisis faster.\u2019\n\n\u201cLet me repeat that, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cThey repeatedly rebuffed recommendations to ease the border crisis.\n\n\u201cWell, Mr. President, I\u2019m glad the New York Times is finally reporting what we\u2019ve known for a long time, and that is that the Biden administration was completely uninterested in solving the border crisis.\n\n\u201cFortunately, those days are over.\n\n\u201cWhen President Trump and Republicans took control this year, we moved to quickly restore order at the southern border.\n\n\u201cAnd the numbers speak for themselves.\n\n\u201cCustoms and Border Protection reported a record-low number of encounters in November.\n\n\u201cFewer than 250 people per day are being apprehended.\n\n\u201cCompare that to the Biden administration, where law enforcement was catching more than 5,000 per day on average.\n\n\u201cAnd in November \u2013 for the seventh month in a row \u2013 zero illegal immigrants have been released into the United States.\n\n\u201cSo under the Trump administration we have a 95 percent drop in apprehensions at the southern border.\n\n\u201cAnd not a single one of the individuals apprehended is being released into the country.\n\n\u201cMr. President, this is remarkable \u2013 remarkable \u2013 progress.\n\n\u201cThis is what the American people expect when it comes to securing our borders.\n\n\u201cAnd Republicans are doing everything we can to ensure that this will be the new standard for border security for a long time to come.\n\n\u201cOur One Big Beautiful Bill, which we passed in July, makes a generational investment in the resources that law enforcement needs to secure the border and deter illegal immigration.\n\n\u201cWe funded completion of the border wall.\n\n\u201cNew technology and equipment for law enforcement.\n\n\u201cAdditional Border Patrol agents.\n\n\u201cExpanded detention capacity.\n\n\u201cAnd expanded partnerships with local law enforcement to enforce immigration law.\n\n\u201cMr. President, these investments are beginning to be implemented across the immigration system.\n\n\u201cHiring efforts are underway to bring on additional agents.\n\n\u201cMore than 1,000 state and local law enforcement agencies have partnered with the federal government to enforce immigration laws through the 287(g) program.\n\n\u201cAnd the Department of Homeland Security is awarding contracts for new technologies and wall construction at the southern border \u2013 investments that will improve law enforcement\u2019s ability to apprehend the illegal immigrants and smugglers who attempt to cross our southern border.\n\n\u201cMr. President, Republicans promised to secure the border.\n\n\u201cWe wasted no time in delivering on that promise.\n\n\u201cAnd thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill, the American people can be certain that border security is here to stay.\n\n\u201cI\u2019m grateful to the men and women on the front lines who come to work every day committed to a safer and a more secure America.\n\n\u201cAnd Republicans will continue to work to ensure that they have everything they need to get the job done.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:09:11Z"]], "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/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=695CEEA2-DC87-428B-A091-955A8A99F4DF"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7020009215921164, "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"}