Vice President JD Vance traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border on Wednesday and touted his administration’s efforts to secure the border while criticizing his predecessor for not doing the same.
“Joe Biden opened up the American southern border and allowed the cartels to turn it into their playground. Now that’s the bad news,” the vice president said at a press conference in Eagle Pass, Texas.
“The good news is,” he continued, “it turns out, we didn’t need new laws. ... We just needed a new president of the United States, and thank God that’s exactly what we have.”
Migrant crossings at the southern border are down from 1,500 a day to 30 a day, Vance said, before promising more improvements.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard accompanied the vice president at the press conference and the helicopter tour around Eagle Pass.
“The drone technology that the cartels are using requires, unfortunately, a military response and military support,” said Vance.
Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to send 5,050 troops to the border on Friday, as The Hill reported. They will join the 1,600 U.S. Marines deployed by Trump earlier in January, and the 2,500 National Guard troops sent under the Biden administration.
The defense secretary promised to dedicate his department’s resources — from troops and surveillance to strategic planning — to securing the border. Gabbard said her agency is focused in finding and deporting migrants affiliated with terrorist organizations.
What did Gabbard and Hegseth say?
Noting the millions of undocumented migrants who entered the U.S. during the Biden administration, Gabbard expressed concerns about unvetted migrants.
“There were over 4,000 people who came across our borders using an ISIS affiliated network. Our National Counterterrorism Center ... identified those individuals,” Gabbard said. “There were hundreds of them who were either known terrorists or associated with known terrorists.”
The national intelligence director said the Biden administration failed to deport all these individuals. The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center is creating one source for vetting migrants and identifying those who pose a threat to the country, she said.
“The president’s designation of the cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations falls directly into this especially as we’re seeing some of the tactics that these cartels are using reflect some of the tactics that we’ve seen used by Islamist terrorists in countries that many of us have served in overseas.”
The future of the border wall
Directing his question to Vance, a reporter asked what the biggest obstacles to mass deportation were.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” the vice president responded. “We have to remember that President Biden gutted the entire immigration enforcement regime of this country.”
The Trump-Vance administration wants to empower the country to enforce common sense immigration laws, he said.
“I don’t want to get ahead of any public announcements, but you know, one of the ways that we wanted to make sure that we’re enforcing our border is that we make it easier for people who are here illegally to go back home of their own accord,” Vance said.
He noted that funding is necessary for deportation flights, deportation centers and other measures to ensure compliance with the federal law, and said it’s a part of Trump’s priorities.
“I think the president’s hope is that by the end of the term we build the entire border wall,” Vance said. “And of course that’s the physical structure, the border wall itself.”