Appropriations

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, if it were up to Republicans, we would have finished the appropriations process months ago. We made a lot of progress on restoring the appropriations process this past year.

We had, for the first time in years, actually moved 11 of the 12 appropriations bills across the finish line under regular order, something that literally hadn't been done in years. And I think if you go back to when the last time we did all 12, it might have been 30-some years ago. But that progress was disrupted.

It was disrupted, first, when Democrats shut down the entire Federal Government in the fall. It was disrupted again when Democrats refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security in February. And it was disrupted, yet again, when Democrats walked away from bipartisan talks because they refused to fund law enforcement and border security.

For 67 days now, Democrats have refused to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security. That is unacceptable, and it is why Republicans are going to move forward this week with a budget resolution that will allow us to take up a funding bill for the law enforcement and border security components of DHS.

And to prevent another reckless attempt by Democrats to defund law enforcement when we next take up appropriations, Republicans will fund law enforcement and border security for the next 3 years.

Now, I say ``reckless'' about the Democrats because that is exactly what they are. Democrats are refusing to fund the Agency that protects our Nation's borders. Think about that for a minute. Let that sink in. Democrats are refusing to fund the Agency that protects our Nation's borders.

These are the people who not only stop people attempting to enter our country illegally but defend our Nation against a number of threats. In fiscal year 2025, Border Patrol agents apprehended 460 gang members trying to enter our country illegally. They apprehended 73 known or suspected terrorists--terrorists--illegally crossing our borders. They seized almost 80,000 pounds of illegal drugs.

They are the ones capturing the human smugglers, the drug traffickers, and the criminals engaged in human trafficking, not to mention that they are the ones conducting rescue operations when illegal immigrants are drowning in the Rio Grande or dying of dehydration in the desert.

And Democrats want to defund--defund--this Agency. They want to leave our borders completely unprotected. I would say they want to go back to the days of the Biden border crisis, when you had literally tens and often hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants flooding across our southern border every month. But it seems Democrats may be looking for something even worse.

Democrats are also refusing to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and that is the Agency that removes criminal illegal immigrants from our country like criminals who are in our country because of the open border policies of the Biden administration.

Do Democrats really want to go back to the days when criminal illegal immigrants were often allowed to live freely in our country? We owe it to the families of Laken Riley and too many others to keep our communities safe, and that is what ICE is doing.

The American people support that mission. Democrats apparently don't.

I expect we are going to hear Democrats this week talk about reforming ICE operations. Here is what I don't think they are going to talk about: The White House reformed how ICE operates on its own months ago. On top of that, the White House repeatedly offered Democrats a robust package of legislative reforms, but nothing was ever enough for Democrats. They kept moving the goalpost, and eventually they just walked away.

Democrats may have decided to abdicate their responsibility to fund crucial government Agencies, but Republicans will not do the same. As I said, the budget resolution before us this week will unlock funding for law enforcement and border security at DHS for the next 3 years.

For the past year, Republicans have operated in good faith to fund the Federal Government with--with--Democrats. We made considerable progress and, as I said, passed 11 out of the 12 appropriations bills. And we were on track to pass a bipartisan Department of Homeland Security funding bill until Democrats walked away.

I suspect our Democrat colleagues will cry ``partisanship''--we heard it from the Democrat leader this morning--throughout this process. The Democrat leader had the gall last week and this to accuse Republicans of embarking on a ``partisan circus'' to fund law enforcement and border security. And it would be funny if those words were not so hypocritical.

Democrats--and Democrats alone--alone--have made this process partisan. Republicans bent over backward to work with them, but it was never enough. And we have run out of time to play the Democrats' games. We have a job to do, and Republicans are going to get it done.

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