The United States Vice President JD Vance, on Wednesday made the first official visit to the Mexican border of a high -ranking member of the White House, since the president, Donald Trump, assumed power.
Together with the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth and the director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, visited the border patrol facilities in Eagle Pass (Texas) and met with Texas government officials, including Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, close allies of Trump.
Speaking during a press conference, Vance celebrated the hard hand policy of his government against migration and connected it with the decrease in irregular crosses on the border with Mexico.
“It turns out that we did not need new laws, or elegant legislation, but a new president,” Vance told reporters from Shelby Park, a park on the banks of the Rio Grande that has become a base for the military and members of the National Guard who have been deployed at the border.
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According to official data, the number of irregular crosses on the southern border was reduced by 38% in January comparison with December last year, the last month of the government of former president Joe Biden.
The February numbers have not yet been published, but Trump indicated the weekend that the border patrol arrested about 8,326 people on the border last month, which would be the lowest figure in arrests since 2000, when EU began to collect monthly data from irregular crossings.
The number of people who cross the border irregularly, however, came in decline since the last months of the Biden government. The Democratic Administration attributed this reduction in irregular migration to the actions of Mexico to stop and disrupt the routes to the border with the United States.
‘We do not want to have a negative relationship with Mexico’
The United States Vice President JD Vance said on Wednesday that his government does not want to have a “negative relationship” with Mexico and asked the neighboring country to “take seriously” the threat of drug cartels, six of them recently designated by Washington as terrorist groups.
“We want the Mexican government to help itself, and also that in the process helps Americans take these organizations seriously,” said the number two of the White House at a press conference during his first official visit to the Southern Border.
EU officially appointed six Mexican posters, including that of Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación, as terrorist groups at the end of February, a controversial measure that has been qualified as an interference by the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum.
Vance specified before a group of reporters in Eagle Pass (Texas) that the designation will allow the government to deploy the “plenary” powers of the army to ensure the border, but refused to go into details about what concrete actions the military will carry out.
When asked if Washington considers the Mexican territory to intervene, the vice president replied no. “We have hopes (that Mexico in front of the posters) but if they do not, then obviously we will see what to do,” he said.
Trump imposed 25% tariffs on Mexico last Tuesday, arguing that the neighboring country has not done enough to stop the traffic of fentanyl, a powerful opioid, towards the US.
President Sheinbaum said that she will impose tariffs in retaliation of American products and rejected what she considers an “interference” by the US.
In a press conference on the eve of the weekend, the Mexican leader indicated that her administration is committed to the fight against organized crime and drug trafficking, but always under her own terms and without accepting “external pressures that compromise the autonomy of the country.”
Fentanyl seizures on the Mexican border have been falling in the last four months, with a 50 % reduction in January 2025 compared to the month of October 2024, according to data from the US Customs and Protection Office.
On the other hand, overdose deaths associated with fentanyl have also been reduced in the country for the first time since 2018. According to DEA data, the country saw a 14.5% reduction in overdose deaths of this opioceous from June 2023 to June 2024.
With EFE information
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