There’s ‘Some Bad News and Some Good News’ at the Border, Vance Declares

There is both “bad news and some good news” from America’s southern border with Mexico, Vice President JD Vance told reporters Wednesday.  

Vance visited the southern border in Eagle Pass, Texas, Wednesday and used the opportunity to contrast President Donald Trump’s border and immigration policies with those of the former administration. 

Starting with the “bad news,” Vance explained that “because of what [President] Joe Biden did at the southern border for four years, we had record increases in migrant crime, in fentanyl deaths, and in just floods and floods of people who shouldn’t be in our country who came into the United States of America.”  

Vance also bashed Biden for border policies that gave the criminal cartels the opportunity to “become more advanced, better war fighters because Joe Biden opened up the American southern border and allowed the cartels to turn it into their playground.”  

But the “good news,” Vance said, is America did not new laws that to secure the border, “we just needed a new president of the United States.” 

The most heartening message that I take away from my visit here at the Texas border is the number of Border Patrol agents that have come up to me and said, ‘thank you.’”  

Vance said Border Patrol officials have told him that all that was required to secure the border was to “empower” agents to do their job.  

“Thank God they have done their job,” Vance said, adding that in and around Eagle Pass, border crossings have “about 1,500 a day to 30 a day, that’s simply the president of the United States empowering these professionals to do what they do so well.” 

Vance’s visit to the border comes about six weeks after being sworn in as vice president. In contrast, Vice President Kamala Harris waited to travel to America’s border with Mexico until about 22 weeks into her term. 

The “border crisis under Biden’s administration” directly affected border communities, Vance said. “I’ve already heard heartbreaking stories of people who are still picking up the pieces, local mayors who are still dealing with the budgetary consequences of what the Joe Biden administration allowed to happen at the American southern border, and that too is something that President Trump is going to help address, help fix, and help solve, Vance pledged.  

Since Trump’s first day in office, the president has used his executive authority to undo the border policies of the previous administration.  

Trump ended the catch-and-release policy and reinstated the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which requires migrants to wait in Mexico until their asylum claim can be heard. Trump also discontinued the CBP One mobile application established under the Biden administration as a tool of mass parole. 

In February, the first full month of the Trump administration, there were 8,326 illegal alien encounters at the southern border, compared with the same month in previous years: 189,913 in 2024; 156,630 in 2023; and 166,010 in 2022, according to Customs and Border Protection.   

The Associated Press reports that migrants who were headed for the U.S. southern border have turned around and gone home following news of Trump’s crackdown on illegal crossings. In the first 11 days of Trump’s term, illegal alien apprehensions fell 93%, according to ABC News.  

At the end of February, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told National Review that federal authorities had removed 55,000 illegal immigrants since the start of the Trump administration on Jan. 20.  

Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s monthly arrests increased 627% under Trump compared with the last year of the Biden administration, according to the Department of Homeland Security.   

The U.S. federal government and Mexico have surged resources to the southern border over the past six weeks, with Mexico announcing the deployment of 10,000 troops to its border with the U.S. The Pentagon announced last week that it will send an additional 3,000 active-duty troops and other resources, including black hawk helicopters, to the U.S. southern border. 

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard accompanied Vance on his border trip because, as Vance noted, solving the border crisis requires coordination and partnership across government departments.  

“As President Trump has made clear,” Hegseth said, “border security is national security.” 

Vance called it unfortunate that the situation at the border “has become a matter of national intelligence.”  

Like Hegseth, Gabbard expressed commitment to use the resources of her department to secure the border.  

“Our mission is very clear,” Gabbard said, “our objective is to keep the American people safe.”

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