{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=9861D29B-0C37-4C70-AC53-289995D5EC49", "Thune: Ending the Security and Humanitarian Crisis at the Southern Border Must Be a Bipartisan Priority", "2022-12-13", "2022", "2022-12", "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. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today spoke on the Senate floor about the unprecedented humanitarian and security crisis at the southern border. Thune noted that the Biden administration has escalated this crisis by failing to implement meaningful policies to deter illegal immigration. Thune also discussed November\u2019s Consumer Price Index report, which shows inflation has increased 13.8 percent since President Biden took office.\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as prepared for delivery):\n\n\u201cMr. President, last Tuesday President Biden was asked why he wasn\u2019t taking the opportunity to visit the border while traveling to Arizona.\n\n\u201cHis reply?\n\n\u201c\u2018Because there\u2019s a more important thing going on.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018\u2026 a more important thing going on.\u2019\n\n\u201cMr. President, no offense to new investment, but if President Biden thinks that visiting a plant to celebrate new investment is MORE important than the security and humanitarian crisis raging on our southern border, then his priorities are seriously out of order.\n\n\u201cBut, of course, we already knew that.\n\n\u201cThis is hardly the first time the president has made it clear that he thinks of the crisis at our southern border as just an annoying distraction from what he\u2019d rather be doing as president.\n\n\u201cIn fact, he\u2019s shown a remarkable ability throughout his presidency to ignore or minimize crises that he isn\u2019t interested in dealing with.\n\n\u201c\u2018\u2026 there\u2019s a more important thing going on.\u2019\n\n\u201cMr. President, I venture to suggest that for overwhelmed border communities struggling with an apparently never-ending influx of illegal immigration, there isn\u2019t anything more important going on.\n\n\u201cAnd the president\u2019s trivializing of our border crisis is a serious betrayal of the responsibility he owes to these Americans \u2013 and to all Americans.\n\n\u201cThe situation at our southern border is out of control \u2013 and has been that way for most of the president\u2019s administration.\n\n\u201cOver this past weekend alone, Customs and Border Protection encountered more than 16,000 individuals attempting to cross our southern border illegally.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s an average of 8,000 per day \u2013 higher than the daily average in May, which posted the highest number of attempted illegal crossings ever recorded.\n\n\u201cOctober saw a staggering 230,678 attempted illegal crossings along our southern border.\n\n\u201cAll told, U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered nearly 2.4 million individuals attempting to cross our southern border illegally during fiscal year 2022.\n\n\u201cThat is the highest number ever recorded, exceeding the previous record set the year before by roughly 640,000.\n\n\u201cAnd of course these numbers just refer to individuals the Border Patrol actually apprehended.\n\n\u201cThere have been almost 1 million known \u201cgotaways\u201d over the past two fiscal years.\n\n\u201cAnd an untold number of unknown gotaways.\n\n\u201cMr. President, President Biden\u2019s comment doesn\u2019t just trivialize the scope of this crisis; it also trivializes the human misery that has resulted.\n\n\u201cAt least 853 migrants died crossing the southern border in fiscal year 2022, the highest number ever recorded.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s hard to imagine that that number wouldn\u2019t have been smaller if President Biden had gotten serious about addressing this border crisis instead of inviting illegal immigration with his lax border policies.\n\n\u201cI mentioned overwhelmed border communities.\n\n\u201cI should also mention the incredible strain the past two years have placed on the Border Patrol, which has been forced to divert agents from border enforcement to the overwhelmed humanitarian mission.\n\n\u201cAnd then of course there\u2019s the very real danger represented by unchecked illegal immigration, including the risk of dangerous individuals entering our country undetected and the potential for increased drug trafficking.\n\n\u201cIllegal drugs are flowing across our southern border \u2013 and contributing to violent crime not just in border communities but in communities around the nation.\n\n\u201cAnd that\u2019s not to even mention our nation\u2019s fentanyl crisis, which is being fed by drugs trafficked across \u2013 where else? \u2013 our southern border.\n\n\u201cAnd our current border crisis is an open invitation to increased illegal drug activity.\n\n\u201cBut the president has more important places to be than the southern border.\n\n\u201cEven though, I should point out, he\u2019s never actually visited the southern border.\n\n\u201cNot once.\n\n\u201cThe closest he got was literally driving by the border on the way to a campaign rally in 2008.\n\n\u201cMr. President, for border communities and strained Border Patrol agents, I venture to say that there is nothing more important than getting our nation\u2019s border crisis under control.\n\n\u201cBut I guess they\u2019ll just have to keep waiting.\n\n\u201cAfter all, the president has more important things to do.\n\n\u201cMr. President, in other tone-deaf comments from the Biden administration last week, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said, and I quote, \u2018Fiscal responsibility is very important to us in the Biden administration. We\u2019re very well aware that we have to stay within our means economically. I think \u2026 you see that in everything we\u2019ve tried to do these past two years.\u2019\n\n\u201cMr. President, when I read that I wasn\u2019t sure whether to laugh or cry \u2013 or just be angry on behalf of the millions of Americans who are currently suffering as a result of Democrats\u2019 lack of fiscal responsibility over the past two years.\n\n\u201cMr. President, we are currently in the midst of the worst inflation crisis in 40 years.\n\n\u201cMy daughters, who are married with their own children now, weren\u2019t even alive the last time inflation was this bad.\n\n\u201cNovember inflation numbers came out this morning, and they just confirmed what we already know \u2013 that we are still very much in the midst of this crisis.\n\n\u201cCurrently, inflation is up 13.8 percent since January 2021, when President Biden took office.\n\n\u201cEven if our inflation crisis ended tomorrow, the inflation we\u2019ve already experienced will cost the average household more than $9,000 over the next 12 months.\n\n\u201c$9,000.\n\n\u201cFor a lot of families, that\u2019s the difference between prosperity and just getting by.\n\n\u201cFor many others, it\u2019s the difference between just getting by and not being able to get by at all.\n\n\u201cAnd how did we get here, Mr. President?\n\n\u201cWell, in substantial part thanks to the president\u2019s and Democrats\u2019 fiscal irresponsibility.\n\n\u201cWhen Democrats took office in January 2021, Congress had just passed a fifth bipartisan COVID bill that met essentially all current pressing COVID needs.\n\n\u201cBut Democrats just wanted to keep spending.\n\n\u201cAnd so despite being warned that the size of the package they were contemplating risked overheating our economy, under the guise of COVID relief Democrats passed a massive, partisan, $1.9 trillion spending bill filled with unnecessary spending and payoffs to Democrat interest groups.\n\n\u201cAnd the economy overheated as a result.\n\n\u201cInflation began climbing. And climbing. And climbing again.\n\n\u201cBut what\u2019s almost worse, Mr. President \u2013 and what makes the White House\u2019s claim that they care about fiscal responsibility so incredibly ludicrous \u2013 is what Democrats and the president did next.\n\n\u201cEven as it became clear that their massive spending spree had helped set off a serious inflation problem, Democrats and the president kept pushing for more spending.\n\n\u201cIn fact, their goal \u2013 which they were fortunately prevented from achieving \u2013 was passing another massive spending spree in the neighborhood of $5 trillion.\n\n\u201cAnd even after that plan was foiled, Democrats and the president kept right on pursuing more fiscally irresponsible legislation.\n\n\u201cIn August Democrats passed legislation \u2013 their so-called Inflation Reduction Act \u2013 filled with hundreds of billions of dollars in Green New Deal spending partially financed by tax hikes that will raise energy prices and slow job creation.\n\n\u201cDemocrats tried to clothe the bill in an aura of fiscal responsibility by claiming \u2013 dubiously, I might add \u2013 that it would reduce the deficit by $300 billion.\n\n\u201cDo you want to know how long that purported deficit reduction lasted once the bill was signed?\n\n\u201cEight days.\n\n\u201cEight days.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s how long it took for President Biden to completely wipe out any deficit reduction in the bill by implementing his massive student loan giveaway.\n\n\u201cA giveaway that not only wipes out any possible deficit reduction but will also, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, \u2018meaningfully boost inflation.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd yet we\u2019re supposed to believe that the Biden administration values fiscal responsibility.\n\n\u201cMr. President, when it comes to fiscal responsibility, the Biden administration has demonstrated that it could not care less.\n\n\u201cThe Biden administration is interested in implementing the big-government priorities of the far left \u2013 no matter how much they cost.\n\n\u201cAnd unfortunately, the American people are paying the price.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:41:06Z"]], "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=9861D29B-0C37-4C70-AC53-289995D5EC49"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.1746200509369373, "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"}