Vets in California Work to Secure Border Wall

Military veterans in southern California have been repairing sections of fencing and walls at the border with Mexico, using razor wire to discourage migrants from crossing the border illegally into their state. 

The group, calling itself Border Vets, has been sharing posts on social media showing its members at work, Newsweek reported Wednesday.

“The holes we can find [in the wall] — we’re going to go ahead and get the razor wire and do our best to defend our country,” retired Marine and Border Vet member Kate Monroe told Border Report, a website that covers illegal immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border. “Whoever it is you’re waiting to do this for you, they’re not coming. It’s going to be people like us, people like America’s veterans.”

The group’s work comes as a recent Monmouth University poll found that 84% of Americans think illegal immigration is a “very serious” or “serious” issue. Former President Donald Trump has made the matter a centerpiece of his presidential campaign. 

Border Vets is working mainly in the area around Jacumba Hot Springs, a major crossing point into California. 

Customs and Border Patrol rules state that only official contractors or employees can work on border defenses, but Monroe told Border Report that “that’s not going to stop us or deter us from coming here.”

“If we can stop them [illegal immigrants] for one day, one hour, one week, we’ve stopped more people from coming into our country,” she said.

Further, Monroe said Border Patrol agents the vets have encountered have not objected to their work.

Monroe, a GOP candidate for California’s 9th District, said on X that the efforts are growing to secure the border. 

“Thursday, I will have a massive team and supply of razor wire to secure the border,” she said. “I’m not even in Congress yet, but I have taken more action on this issue over the past week than the president has in the past 3 years.”

Border Vets activist Brett Christenson said the organization “was born out of need and out of an obligation to an oath that we took to defend our nation from all enemies foreign and domestic.”

“The Biden administration wants to see our country burn,” he said. “We’re here to tell them we are done and we will take matters into our own hands.”

The Border Patrol recorded 176,205 illegal border crossings in January, down 42% from December when 301,983 were recorded, marking the largest drop since President Joe Biden was sworn in in January 2021.