Inside JD Vance’s Tone-Setting Trip To The Southern Border

EAGLE PASS, Texas – As the vice president’s motorcade zipped by a long stretch of border wall Tuesday, the barrier quickly turned from solid structure to a patchwork of old train cars and razor wire.

The motorcade turned into Shelby Park, an area Gov. Greg Abbott seized so officials could put up razor wire and barriers to help deter crossings coming from the Rio Grande. Standing in the middle of the park at a podium, the location quickly became symbolic of how the administration is addressing the border crisis.

“I think the president’s hope is that by the end of the term, we build the entire border wall. And, of course, that’s the physical structure, the border wall itself,” the vice president said in response to the Daily Caller’s question about how much of the border needs to be walled off before President Donald Trump leaves office.

🚨 VP Vance Comments on Timeline of the Border Wall

Daily Caller White House Correspondent @reaganreese_: “How much of the southern border wall needs to be walled off before Trump leaves office?”

VANCE: “The President’s hope is that by the end of the term, we will build the… pic.twitter.com/IAlGkNPjkQ

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 5, 2025

Just about six weeks into the administration, Vance was at the border and he didn’t go alone. Vance spent the entire day trip with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. They did an aerial tour of the American side of the border in a Black Hawk, visited border facilities and met with lawmakers, border patrol agents and other leaders.

At Eagle Pass, Texas, which was once a hub of illegal immigrants crossing the border, he touted the administration’s progress at mitigating the migration crisis.

“I will say that the most heartening message that I take away from my visit here at the Texas border is the number of border patrol agents who have come up to me and said, ‘thank you,’” Vance told reporters.

“Or said, ‘Because of this, we’ve cut the number of border crossings from 1,500 a day to 30 a day.’ Or the people who have come up and said, ‘we’ve seen a reduction of 85% of the number of people who are dying at the American southern border,’ and every single day that we continue to keep this border safe, that means less migrant crime, that means less fentanyl coming into our communities,” Vance continued at his press conference.

About five months earlier, Vance’s predecessor stopped at the southern border while making a run for the White House. Former Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign planned a stop to visit a section of the border in Douglas, Arizona, where she gave remarks and called for a solution to the border crisis. It was her first trip to a section of the southern border in three years, after Biden gave her the job of addressing the “root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.” 

At the time, an analysis by The New York Times found that under the Biden administration, the level of net migration into the country was the largest in the country’s history. The 2024 U.S. fiscal year was the second worst in history for illegal immigration.

Since taking office, Trump has signed a flurry of executive orders, like a national emergency declaration allowing him to divert more military resources to the U.S.-Mexico border and another to resume border wall construction. Other executive orders included a designation of drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a pause on refugee admissions and an end to birthright citizenship for individuals born on U.S. soil to illegal migrant parents. (RELATED: Trump DHS Chucks Two Biden-Era Immigration Policies Into Dustbin)

There were 101,790 migrant encounters at the southern border in September, the final month of fiscal year 2024, according to data released Tuesday by Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

The Trump administration has touted figures trying to show how its actions in roughly the first month have dramatically impacted the border crisis. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed that the administration marked the lowest single-day apprehension number in over 15 years, with 200 migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border on Feb. 22. Trump also announced that during his first few weeks in office there were 8,326 migrant apprehensions at the border.

To build on this, Vance repeatedly referenced a line from Trump’s joint congressional address the night before.

“As you saw, the president said yesterday, I think it’s maybe the most important part of his speech, is that we didn’t need new laws to secure the border. We needed a new president, and thank God we have that,” Vance said to a group of Texas and border patrol leaders Wednesday.

“I’ve heard already from a number of the folks that I’ve talked to in border patrol, that all we needed to do was empower these guys to do their job,” he continued.

VANCE on his tour of the southern border:

“We took the helicopter ride over here, and we saw a big chunk of border wall. And I said, is that the federal government’s border wall? And they said, well, it was ordered during the first Trump administration and Joe Biden wouldn’t… pic.twitter.com/NoU4G07Jfi

— Reagan Reese (@reaganreese_) March 5, 2025

The trip was not just about celebrating. After taking an aerial tour of the border, the trio of administration officials visited Eagle Pass Border Patrol Station to participate in a roundtable with a variety of leaders, including Abbott, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the mayor of Eagle Pass, the chief of Border Patrol and National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd, to discuss further how they could get the border under control.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Vance acknowledged that the administration had more work to do.

“First of all, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and we have seen pretty significant decreases in deportations and apprehensions and arrests. But we have to remember that President Biden gutted the entire immigration enforcement regime of this country. We are trying to rebuild so that we actually empower people to enforce the immigration laws,” the vice president told reporters.

Daily Caller White House Correspondent @reaganreese_: “What can [Mexico] do this time to make the tariffs go away?”

VANCE: “We need a SUSTAINED commitment from the government of Mexico to take the job of border security seriously.” pic.twitter.com/7FIue9qjkH

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 5, 2025

He also hinted that Trump has more announcements coming on how the administration will secure the southern border, a topic that is sometimes overlooked as the media focuses on Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency. (RELATED: ‘Going To Be A Game-Changer’: Homan Breaks Down Key Details On Trump’s Upcoming Executive Orders To Tighten Borders)

“I don’t want to get ahead of any public announcements, but 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 explained.

“We don’t want to have to go around and arrest every person, but we will enforce the American people’s immigration laws if you’re here illegally, the message from our administration is, you should go back home,” Vance added. “If you want to come to the United States, apply through the proper channels, that’s an important thing that we’re doing.”