It’s about time that the federal government started taking the border mess seriously.
On Monday, newly-minted Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth visited the southern border, in company with border czar Tom “The Hammer” Homan, and as you might expect from a former combat soldier, he brought the thunder when talking to reporters.
🔥Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is on FIRE at the southern border:
“Border security is national security. Guys and gals of my generation have spent decades in foreign countries guarding other people’s borders. It’s about time we secure our own border. Tens of millions of people… pic.twitter.com/YtE8zL7CpJ
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) February 3, 2025
Secretary Hegseth said:
“Border security is national security. Guys and gals of my generation have spent decades in foreign countries guarding other people’s borders. It’s about time we secure our own border. Tens of millions of people have poured across this border under Joe Biden’s administration unchecked. We have no idea who they are. We have no idea where they’re coming from. We have no idea what their intentions are. In many ways, under the Biden administration, and Tom (Homan) knows this better than anybody else, they were facilitated, their entry into this country. THAT STOPS NOW under President Trump and the Defense Department is proud to be a part of it. We have defended other places and other spaces. We will defend this line!”
This is a much more muscular border policy than that of the Biden administration. Of course, on the scale of muscular border policies, the Biden administration was in the “PeeWee Herman” range.
Also, Secretary Hegseth seems to have been reading my work, as I have written many times on the calamity of allowing in millions of people, many if not most young, unattached, military-age men while having little or no idea who they are, where they are coming from, where they intend to go or what they intend to do when they get there.
See Related: Trump, Sec. Hegseth Announce US Made ‘Precision Air Strikes’ Against ISIS Leadership in Somalia
This Is How You Do It: New Video Shows Air Strike That Erased ISIS Leader From the Planet
Speaking of bad actors: The Secretary of Defense added a specific warning to the cartels:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth live from the southern border:
“To the cartels: All options are on the table. We will secure the border.” pic.twitter.com/2slvUq6k7X
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) February 3, 2025
To the cartels: All options are on the table. We will secure our border and all our men and women guarding it, and we’re proud to be here.
The Department of Defense (can we get real and go back to calling it the War Department?) has a role to play here. It may be mostly logistical, but the U.S. Army has, historically, been pretty good at getting massive quantities of beans, bullets, and gas where and when they needed to be. The Army Corps of Engineers are great at civil engineering projects, like, say, border walls. And, should it come to that, where the cartels are concerned, we have operators who are really good at un-aliving bad guys in hot, dry, dusty places. A lot of our people have done time in various sandboxes dealing with obnoxious people with AKs — they’ve played this game before.
It’s beginning to look like things may just be getting under control on our nation’s borders.
