Vice President JD Vance visited the U.S.-Mexico border Wednesday following President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress to highlight the administration’s ongoing efforts to crack down on illegal immigration and reduce the threat of criminal cartels.
The vice president visited the southern border for the first time alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. The trio viewed the border town of Eagle Pass, located roughly 100 miles west of San Antonio.
“Every single day that we continue to keep this border safe, that means less migrant crime, that means less fentanyl coming into our communities, that means more safety and security for the people of the United States of America,” Vance said during the press conference in Eagle Pass, Texas.
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Throughout the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to strengthen border security and combat illegal immigration. According to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, monthly border crossings reached the lowest point in three years in January.
Vance said the Trump administration plans to build a wall along the entire length of the U.S. southern border by the time the president’s term concludes.
“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, but we even heard today, there are so many good technological tools. So many great artificial intelligence-enabled technologies that allow us, for example — a camera, not a person, but a camera picks up somebody 2 miles away who’s about to come across the southern border. … We’re going to do it as much as we can, as broadly as we can, because that’s how we’re going to protect the American people’s security.”
Hegseth added, “As President Trump has made clear on the campaign trail and from day one and last night, border security is national security.”
“And from the Defense Department, we’ve watched for a couple of decades other people’s borders being secured while ours was open for an invasion of drugs, violence and chaos for American communities,” the defense secretary added.
“That stops under President Trump. And the Defense Department has assets that we can bring to bear — not just troops, not just surveillance, not just equipment, but actual planning capabilities that enhance what Border Patrol is already doing.”
As CBS News reported this week, the officials’ visit to the border comes after the Trump administration imposed a 25% tariff on nearly all imported goods from Mexico due to the country’s handling of mass illegal immigration.
During a joint session of Congress in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday night, Trump called for Mexico and Canada to do more to stop the flow of fentanyl and other drugs into the U.S.
“They’re going to stop it. I have sent Congress a detailed funding request laying out exactly how we will eliminate these threats to protect our homeland and complete the largest deportation operation in American history,” the president said about Mexico and Canada.”
Trump also highlighted the threat of criminal cartels, which he noted murder, rape, torture and exercise total control … over a whole nation” and pose “a grave threat to our national security,” Trump asserted that “the cartels are waging war on America.”
“It’s time for America to wage war on the cartels,” he asserted. “I have sent Congress a detailed funding request laying out exactly how we will eliminate these threats to protect our homeland and complete the largest deportation operation in American history.”
Highlighting the problem of illegal immigration that surged under the Biden administration, Trump introduced Alexis Nungaray, whose 12-year-old daughter, Jocelyn, was murdered by two criminal illegal immigrants from Venezuela in June 2024. The president blamed the Biden-Harris administration’s “open border” for the young girl’s death.
“The death of this beautiful 12-year-old girl and the agony of her mother and family touched our entire nation greatly,” the president said.
Trump announced that he had signed an executive order renaming the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge in Texas after Jocelyn Nungaray, recalling his promise to Nungaray that “we would always remember your daughter.”
The family of 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley, who was murdered in 2024 by an illegal migrant, also received recognition from the president. Trump reflected on his signing of the Laken Riley Act, which “mandates the detention of all dangerous criminal aliens who threaten public safety.”
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
