A border wall improvement project that was previously halted by President Joe Biden is now resuming in the Texas Rio Grande Valley.
U.S. Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks revealed that a border wall enhancement initiative, initially canceled under the Biden administration, has been reinstated along the Texas-Mexico border, following orders from the Trump administration.
Banks detailed that the project involves swapping out six-foot guardrails with towering 18-foot bollard panels. These barriers are specifically engineered to “provide impedance and denial capabilities” to deter unauthorized crossings from Mexico into Texas.
“These panels were originally planned for installation during the prior Trump Administration, but the contracts were cancelled (sic) by the Biden Administration,” Banks explained. “The panels going in today will replace the six-foot guard rails and will provide impedance and denial capabilities in support of the President’s recent Executive Orders to ensure complete operational control of the Southern border.”
This development was announced on the same day that Vice President JD Vance, alongside several high-ranking Trump officials, visited the Texas border at Eagle Pass. Breitbart’s Randy Clark reported that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard accompanied the vice president on this border tour.
“The president has said we need sustained commitment from the government of Mexico to take the job of border security seriously,” Vice President Vance stated to reporters. “Fentanyl is the single largest cause of death among young Americans, and we know that a substantial portion of … the precursors are made in China. They come to Mexico. They’re manufactured in Mexico and brought across the border by the Mexican drug cartels.”
Texas Governor Greg Abbott met with the Trump delegation in Eagle Pass, where he provided a briefing on the state’s measures to reinforce border security. “All our country needed to secure the border was a new President,” Abbott declared in a post on X. “Together, we will make America safe again.”
Measures taken by President Donald Trump and his national security team resulted in a dramatic reduction in migrant encounters, with a 94 percent drop in February compared to the same time last year, according to Breitbart Texas. Border Patrol agents recorded just over 8,300 illegal crossings that month, a staggering decrease from the 140,641 encounters reported the previous year. Even more strikingly, the numbers dropped by 82 percent from December, which was President Joe Biden’s last full month in office. The transition in leadership saw a sharp decline in crossings, with figures plummeting to around 29,000 by the end of January.
On February 21, Texas Department of Public Safety Spokesman Lt. Chris Olivarez reported that the daily rate of migrant apprehensions along the southwest border dipped below 200 for the first time, with agents processing 199 individuals. The following day, February 22, the figure declined further to 185.
Breitbart Texas reported on February 19 that border encounters for the month were averaging approximately 328 per day. Had that pace continued through February’s end, the total number of migrant apprehensions could have been as low as 9,200. However, Chief Banks later confirmed that the actual number surpassed that estimate, with 8,326 migrants being taken into custody.
This marks an all-time low in CBP records, tracing back to the final full year of the Clinton administration (FY2000). The previous record low was documented in April 2017, during President Trump’s third month in office, when agents apprehended 11,127 migrants.
{Matzav.com}
