JACUMBA, Calif. — A group of veterans is taking matters into their own hands by installing razor wire at the border with Mexico. They call themselves the Border Vets and their mission is to prevent illegal border crossings by migrants.
Kate Monroe started giving media tours of the border in February when she was still running for Congress. She lost in the March 2024 primary.
Monroe received local and national publicity resulting from the Border Vet tours. Monroe herself says she is a former U.S. Marine.
“This is about protecting our nation. We've already let terrorists in, drugs. The drug cartels have control of the border, sex trafficking, drug trafficking,” said Monroe.
News cameras follow Monroe to the Mexico border in Jacumba to videotape the group installing poles and razor wire across holes in the border wall.
“We definitely are trying to make it harder for them to get through here,” Monroe said.
Monroe and another veteran, Brett Christenson, took CBS 8 to the border in Jacumba, an hour east of San Diego, where some of the razor wire installed previously by the Border Vets was still in place.
In another nearby area, the razor wire had been pushed aside. Christenson was able to easily cross at the location into Mexico, where he started picking up paperwork he said was left by migrants on the Mexican side of the wall.
A reporter pointed out his group’s mission was to prevent illegal crossings, yet Christenson had just crossed illegally into Mexico.
“I'm trying to collect some evidence of what's going on to see what the problems are and what's happening and why we have such the influx of people coming in illegally,” Christenson responded.
About a mile away, CBS 8 ran into a group of migrants who had just crossed the border on foot, some of them through the same hole in the wall that the Border Vets had tried to secure.
“We haven't met anybody that wasn't dropped off by the cartel,” Monroe said, after speaking with some of the migrants.
The migrants wait at the location by the side of the freeway, for hours or sometimes days so that they can surrender to Border Patrol agents.
CBS 8 spoke to Jessica Salazar, a mother from Columbia. She said she left her four children behind and spent the past month and a half traveling across seven countries to get to the United States.
“We saw dead people through the Darién Gap,” Salazar said with the assistance of a translator.
Salazar said the worst part of her journey was in Mexico, where she said she was robbed by police. After ending up in Tijuana, Salazar said she took a bus east to cross the border in Jacumba, without any assistance from so-called coyotes.
CBS 8 interviewed a dentist from Turkey, who planned to live with his brother in South Carolina.
“I hope for a future to treat people. That's my job. I am a doctor. So, I treat people. Make people good,” the man said.
Several children were seen waiting to be picked up by agents. One mother nursed her infant while sitting in the dirt.
A reporter asked Monroe if these were the type of people the Border Vets were trying to prevent from crossing into the United States.
“The type of people that we're trying to prevent from crossing the border illegally is every type of person because they're doing it illegally,” Monroe responded. “The young woman that you interviewed earlier from Colombia, while her story is sad that she's here, the story that got her here is also sad. The way in which we force people to come because we are unwilling to reform immigration causes all of this.”
Back at the border, the razor wire installed by the Border Vets begs a question: Are they breaking the law by building their own wall on federal property?
“The federal government is breaking the law by allowing the onslaught of migrants to come into our country from countries all around the world. We have people coming across that we have found that are on the terror watch list,” Monroe claimed.
CBS 8 reached out to Customs and Border Protection, specifically asking the agency if the Border Vets were breaking the law. The agency released the following statement in response:
“Immigration enforcement is a federal law enforcement responsibility. CBP closely monitors reports of any activity that may interfere with law enforcement operations or endanger lives and will assist our state and local law enforcement partners in responding to such incidents as appropriate.”
CBP also advised it strongly encourages concerned citizens to call the U.S. Border Patrol and/or local law enforcement authorities if they witness or suspect illegal activity.
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