Washington—Vice President JD Vance, Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of Nationwide Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard are on the southern border Wednesday to focus on the Trump administration’s efforts to fight unlawful crossings and drug trafficking, the day following President Trump’s joint deal with to Congress through which immigration performed a distinguished function.
“Each single day that we proceed to maintain this border secure, which means much less migrant crime, which means much less fentanyl coming into our communities, which means extra security and safety for the folks of the USA of America,” Vance stated throughout a press look.
“As President Trump has made clear on the marketing campaign path and from day one and final night time, border safety is nationwide safety, Hegseth stated. “And from the Protection Division, we have watched for a few many years different folks’s borders being secured whereas ours was open for an invasion of medication and of violence and of chaos for American communities. That stops beneath President Trump. And the Protection Division has belongings that we will carry to bear — not simply troops, not simply surveillance, not simply tools, however precise planning capabilities that improve what Border Patrol is already doing.”
The highest administration officers are within the border city of Eagle Move, Texas, roughly 100 miles west of San Antonio. Vance and Hegseth signify the highest-ranking administration officers to go to the southern border since Mr. Trump’s inauguration. They arrived at some point after the Trump administration imposed 25% tariffs on almost all imported items from Mexico, citing Mexico’s dealing with of the state of affairs on the border, a transfer that despatched shares tumbling.
“We’d like Mexico and Canada to do rather more than they’ve executed, they usually need to cease the fentanyl and medicines pouring into the USA,” the president stated Tuesday night time. “They are going to cease it. I’ve despatched Congress an in depth funding request laying out precisely how we’ll get rid of these threats to guard our homeland and full the biggest deportation operation in American historical past.”
Unlawful border crossings on the U.S. southern border have plummeted since Mr. Trump took workplace. In February, his first full month in workplace, the White Home says unlawful border crossings reached the bottom stage in a minimum of 25 years. And the administration says greater than 50,000 folks within the nation illegally have been faraway from the U.S., a determine that features migrants with violent legal histories.
Two U.S. officers say there are not any Division of Protection flights scheduled to take migrants within the U.S. illegally to Guantanamo or to different overseas international locations, after the Pentagon started supplying expensive deportation flights. One of many officers stated the Division of Homeland Safety is at present going with different choices, however the Pentagon is standing by in case they’re requested to offer extra flights.
The 28,000-person city of Eagle Move, the place Vance and high officers are heading, is in Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales’ district. His district spans nearly all of the size of Texas’ portion of the border with Mexico.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Gonzales are current for the go to, and officers held a roundtable to debate the state of affairs at hand.
“We’d like new legal guidelines to safe the border,” Vance stated throughout the roundtable. “We wanted a brand new president. And thank God we’ve got that.”
Safety private and officers on either side of the Texas-Mexico border stand watch as they await the arrival of Vice President JD Vance an immigration processing facility in Eagle Move, Texas, Wednesday, March 5, 2025.
Rodolfo Gonzalez / AP
Vance has visited the southern border earlier than. He made a visit to the border wall in San Diego, California, in September.
Extra from CBS Information
Kathryn Watson