By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
EAGLE PASS – An expansive city park along the Rio Grande that over the past four years saw thousands of immigrants enter the country illegally became the backdrop Wednesday for the wrap-up of Vice President JD Vance’s tour of enforcement operations on the Texas-Mexico border.
Joining Vance were Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, as well as U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, who represents the area in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.
Vance, Hegseth, Gabbard and Gonzales landed at Laughlin Air Force Base outside Del Rio Wednesday morning and spent much of the day touring the border between Del Rio and Eagle Pass
of Shelby Park in Eagle Pass before the arrival of Vice President JD Vance. (Photo by
Karen Gleason)
with members of the U.S. Border Patrol, the Texas National Guard and the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The group arrived at Shelby Park about 3 p.m. Wednesday and was escorted to a fenced-off and heavily guarded section close to the river.
Camouflage netting, armored personnel carriers and stacked shipping containers placed on the U.S. side of the river as part of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star border security initiative set the stage for a press conference.
A number of law enforcement and military agencies provided multiple layers of security. Eagle Pass Police Department officers guarded streets into and out of the park, while members of the Texas National Guard checked visitors going through the metal border fence between the park and the rest of the city.
U.S. Border Patrol and the Texas Department of Public Safety mounted patrols ranged throughout the site, while Customs and Border Protection officers closed cross-border traffic on the Friendship Bridge to Piedras Negras, Coah., Mexico.
Drones and helicopters made regular passes in the air above the park, Border Patrol air boats patrolled the river, and Secret Service agents checked every person and item brought into the press conference area.
Even Mexico was on high alert: Heavily-armed soldiers or police officers were stationed in the public park across the Rio Grande from Shelby Park.
Vance greeted media members and spoke for several minutes after he arrived (see separate story here), then told reporters he would like them to hear from Hegseth and Gabbard.
The vice president invited Hegseth to speak first.
Hegseth told reporters, “Well, Mr. Vice President, thank you very much for inviting us. It’s great to be here with you, with the Director (Gabbard), with our fellow friends in civilian clothes and in other shades of green. This is a demonstration of a true partnership on the southern border.
“As President Trump has made clear, on the campaign trail and from day one and last night (in his State of the Union address), 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 and of violence and of chaos for American communities.
“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 and capabilities that enhance what Border Patrol is already doing, which is why it’s been incredible to hear from our partners about what we’ve been able to allow them to do, facilitate them, and we’ve seen it in the numbers: 98 percent drop in crossings on the southern border.
“We’re not yet at 100 percent operational control, but we are on our way because that is the mandate that the president has given us. So, more resources are coming to this border. We are dedicated to securing it. That’s the reason for our trip and our partnership, and I want to thank all the men and women in uniform who have been doing it recently, who have been doing it a long time, right here, who have dedicated their lives to securing the American people, and at the Defense Department, we are committed to continuing to be a big part of it,” Hegseth finished.
Vance then invited Gabbard to speak.
The director told reporters, “Thank you, Mr. Vice President, for your leadership, in bringing the country’s attention to what has been happening here at the border and the significant change that has already occurred in the short time that President Trump has been in office.
“Really, what you’re seeing here today and what you’ll continue to see is a unified effort across President Trump’s national security team, the Department of Homeland Security, towards our mission, which is to ensure a safe, free and prosperous society for Americans.
“As director of national intelligence, there are a number of areas where we are focused. As the president talked about in his speech (the State of the Union address), over 21 million people have come across our borders illegally under Joe Biden’s administration. There are many of them that we don’t know who they are. They have not been vetted. We don’t know where they are.
“I’ll give you one quick example of one of the problems that we are getting after. From central Asia, there were over 4,000 people who came across our borders using an ISIS-affiliated network.
“Our national counterterrorism center went through and identified those individuals. There were hundreds of them who were either known terrorists or associated with known terrorists. That information was provided to the Biden Administration.
“You may remember in some of the news, a little over 100 of those people were arrested in 2024. Of those who were arrested, only eight were either deported or remained in custody. Only eight. The rest of them were released back into our country.
“Where are they? What are they doing? What may they be plotting? This is just the beginning. There are many, many areas that we need to stay very focused on.
“Working with the Department of Homeland Security, working with the FBI, to ensure that we’re keeping the American people safe. Our counterterrorism center is working on making sure that we have that single source for vetting, so that we can figure out who is actually in our country and identify those who pose a threat and get them removed.
“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 served in overseas.
“Our mission is very clear. Our objective is to keep the American people safe. I’m grateful to be a part of this team that President Trump has assembled to accomplish that mission,” Gabbard ended.
After Hegseth and Gabbard spoke, Vance said he had two final thoughts he wished to share.
Vance said, “First of all, the reason why we’ve seen, as Pete said, a 98 percent reduction in border crossings, the reason why this particular site has gone from over 1,500 crossings per day to 30 crossings per day, is because President Trump has empowered and in fact demanded that his whole government take the task of border control seriously, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.
“And my final point before we take questions, it is impossible to do without the men and women on the ground who are actually doing the hard work. They just want to be empowered to do their jobs, and President Trump has made that possible.
“So, from the bottom of my heart, and from a grateful nation, to every person I’ve met here today, thank you for working hard on the American people’s business. It’s been an honor to be with you. It’s been an honor to see what you do, and we’re going to keep on supporting you for the next four years,” Vance said.
The vice president also thanked Gonzales for joining him on the tour and for his leadership.
Vance then spent about 10 minutes fielding questions from reporters before returning to his motorcade for the trip to back to Laughlin Air Force Base.
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