Vance says Trump hopes to build the entire southern border wall by 2029

Washington (CBS News) —Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday that President Trump hopes to build the entire wall along the southern border by the time his term concludes, an ambitious goal that Mr. Trump was unable to realize in his first term.

Vance made the comments as he, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard made a day trip to the border town of Eagle Pass, Texas, to highlight the Trump administration’s efforts to combat illegal crossings and drug trafficking. Their visit comes a day following Mr. Trump’s joint address to Congress, in which immigration played a prominent role.

Illegal border crossings at the U.S. southern border have plummeted since Mr. Trump took office, but the president’s recent speeches feature fewer mentions of building a physical border wall than they did during his 2016 campaign and first term.

“I think the president’s hope is that by the end of the term we build the entire border wall,” Vance said. “And of course that’s the physical structure, the border wall itself, but we even heard today, there are so many good technological tools. So many great artificial intelligence-enabled technologies that allow us, for example — a camera, not a person, but a camera picks up somebody two miles away who’s about to come across the southern border. … We’re using artificial intelligence to make us better at the job of border enforcement, but we’ve got to make sure that technology is deployed across the entire American southern border. We’re going to do it as much as we can, as broadly as we can, because that’s how we’re going to protect the American people’s security.”

Vance and Hegseth represent the highest-ranking administration officials to visit the southern border since Mr. Trump’s inauguration.

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