John Hoeven: “I want to echo the comments of both the esteemed Senator from South Carolina as well as the Senator from North Carolina.…”

“I want to echo the comments of both the esteemed Senator from South Carolina as well as the Senator from North Carolina. And I rise to address the same subject, and that is, to bring attention to the crisis that is taking place at our southern border. You know, the cause of the crisis is very clear, and the numbers do not lie. In fiscal year 2022, Customs and Border Protection--CBP-- encountered nearly 2.4 million illegal crossings at the southern border. In fiscal year 2023, the number of encounters rose to nearly 2.5 million--2.5 million. Now, since the start of fiscal 2024--that's what, just the first month--there have been over 240,000 illegal crossings at our southern border. Put differently, this means that after just over a month--end of the fiscal year, this fiscal year 2024--nearly a quarter of a million people have tried to illegally enter the United States via the southern border. And these are just the individuals that we know about. Reporting shows that since the start of fiscal 2024, there have been more than 23,000 known ``got-aways.'' Since the beginning of the Biden administration, there have been 1.7 million ``got-aways.'' Additionally, CBP has confirmed that a dozen individuals on the Terrorist Watchlist have attempted to illegally enter the United States through the southern border already this fiscal year, in just 1 month. And look what is going on in the world right now.…”