{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=730FBFFD-EBB3-43C6-8373-A92B9C9C124F", "Thune: Biden\u2019s Border Policies Threaten Our National Security", "2023-11-01", "2023", "2023-11", "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. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today spoke on the Senate floor about President Biden\u2019s failed border policies that have jeopardized our national security. Thune highlighted the third consecutive record-breaking year of illegal border crossings under President Biden, as well as the influx of individuals on the terrorist watchlist who have attempted to enter the country at the southern border. Thune called on the administration to immediately reverse its misguided policies and focus on improving border security and enforcing the law.\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as prepared for delivery):\n\n\u201cMr. President, we recently learned that fiscal year 2023 set a new record for the number of illegal immigrants apprehended at the southern border \u2013 the third record-breaking year of illegal immigration under the Biden administration.\n\n\u201cFirst, fiscal year 2021 set an all-time record.\n\n\u201cThen fiscal year 2022 broke that record.\n\n\u201cAnd now fiscal year 2023 has broken that record.\n\n\u201cIn other words, Mr. President, we\u2019ve had three straight years of the Biden border crisis getting worse and worse and worse.\n\n\u201cSince the president took office, more than 6.2 million individuals have been caught attempting to illegally cross our southern border.\n\n\u201c6.2 million.\n\n\u201cIf every one of these individuals lived in one city, it would be the second largest in the country.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I don\u2019t need to tell anyone that the kind of unchecked illegal immigration we\u2019re experiencing represents a serious security threat.\n\n\u201cThe Department of Homeland Security recently noted in its 2024 threat assessment that, quote, \u2018Terrorists and criminal actors may exploit the elevated flow [of migration] and increasingly complex security environment to enter the United States.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd, by all indications, bad actors are in fact taking advantage of the chaos at the border to try to enter the United States.\n\n\u201cDuring fiscal year 2023 alone, 169 individuals on the terrorist watchlist were caught attempting to illegally cross our southern border.\n\n\u201c169.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s more than in the previous six years combined.\n\n\u201cThe head of the Border Patrol recently said that his agency is arresting an average of more than 47 people per day who have, and I quote, \u2018serious criminal histories.\u2019\n\n\u201cMore than 47 people. Per day. With \u2018serious criminal histories.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd, Mr. President, that\u2019s just the individuals who are being caught.\n\n\u201cSince January 2021, when President Biden took office, there have been more than 1.7 million known gotaways \u2013 individuals the Border Patrol saw but was unable to apprehend.\n\n\u201cAnd we can only imagine the number of unknown gotaways who have sneaked into the country.\n\n\u201cHow many of those individuals have \u2018serious criminal histories\u2019 or hail from hostile countries?\n\n\u201cWe don\u2019t know.\n\n\u201cBut we can be pretty confident that among those gotaways are dangerous individuals who should not be entering our country.\n\n\u201cMr. President, this is a serious issue.\n\n\u201cAnd we need a serious course correction from this administration.\n\n\u201cVice President Harris, who is in charge of overseeing border policies for this administration, recently told 60 Minutes that, quote, \u2018we need a safe, orderly, and humane border policy.\u2019\n\n\u201cThis has been the purported goal of the Biden administration for almost three years now.\n\n\u201cBut the administration has been failing on all three counts.\n\n\u201cAnd the current crisis we\u2019re experiencing is a predictable result of the Biden administration\u2019s decisions.\n\n\u201cBefore the president took office, his team was warned of the possibility of a migrant surge.\n\n\u201cYet the moment the president took office he set about dismantling the immigration policies of his predecessor and weakening our nation\u2019s border security.\n\n\u201cAnd the result has been three successive years of record-breaking illegal immigration.\n\n\u201cAnd while the Biden administration has finally started to at least half-heartedly acknowledge our nation\u2019s border crisis and put in place policies attempting to encourage legal migration and penalize illegal border crossings, the changes are insufficient.\n\n\u201cFar too little, far too late.\n\n\u201cOr as one columnist put it recently in the Washington Post, \u2018The Biden administration\u2019s various efforts have amounted to Band-Aids on a massive, open wound.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd the president\u2019s recent supplemental funding request has not left me hopeful that the administration is suddenly going to become more effective.\n\n\u201cPotentially billions in reimbursement for blue states struggling to house illegal immigrants won\u2019t do a single thing to solve the crisis we\u2019re facing at the border.\n\n\u201cAnd while the president\u2019s proposal does include some funding that would actually go toward security, funding alone is not enough.\n\n\u201cWe need meaningful policy changes that will, for starters, end the rampant abuse of our asylum system and sweeping parole designations.\n\n\u201cSenators Graham, Lankford, and Cotton, among several others, are working hard to craft a set of changes to our asylum and parole policies that would stem the flow at our border.\n\n\u201cThese changes would address obvious flaws in President Biden\u2019s immigration policies and make tangible progress toward getting our border crisis under control.\n\n\u201cMr. President, recent events have underscored the importance of national security.\n\n\u201cAnd a porous southern border is a huge vulnerability.\n\n\u201cWe need to use every tool we can to secure the border and keep terrorists and criminals out of the United States.\n\n\u201cSenate Republicans are committed to putting policies in place at the border that keep Americans safe.\n\n\u201cAnd I hope that in the days and weeks to come, Senate Democrats will join us to make securing our border a priority.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I yield the floor.\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.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=730FBFFD-EBB3-43C6-8373-A92B9C9C124F"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9266850538551807, "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"}