A group of California veterans calling themselves “Border Vets” are trying to do their part to fix the immigration crisis by filling gaps in the border with razor wire to prevent immigrants from illegally entering the United States.
The group helps install metal stakes to fix razor wire in sealing the border in the Jacumba Hot Springs area 60 miles outside of San Diego, a city that officials say absorbed 1,300 new immigrants over the weekend, the New York Post reported.
While U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the public cannot modify border barriers, Border Vets member and retired Marine Kate Monroe told the Border Report they were doing it to help defend their country.
“It’s really serious for everybody here that we protect our nation. The holes that we can find, we’re going to go ahead and get the razor wire and do our best to defend our country,” Monroe said. “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.”
Jacumba Hot Springs has become a hot spot for immigrants crossing the border and eventually making their way to San Diego. Associated Press photographer Gregory Bull, who documented immigrants entering Jacumba Hot Springs earlier this month, told CNN the immigrants he encountered were mainly Colombian, Ecuadorian, and Peruvian, with some from China and India.
The Border Patrol agents don’t stop the veterans from sealing gaps with razor wire and are grateful for the group’s work, even if their efforts could eventually be removed by smugglers, Monroe said.
“That’s not going to stop us or deter us from coming here,” Monroe said. “If we can stop them for one day, one hour, one week, we’ve stopped more people from coming into our country.”
Since fiscal 2024 started on Oct. 1, nearly 140,000 illegal immigrants have flooded into San Diego, according to CBP data reported by Fox News.
Monroe said that while she is not opposed to immigrants who want a better life, she reportedly said she is concerned about the single men “of military age” making their way across the border.
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“They’re not coming from the other side of the fence; they are flying here from God knows where,” Monroe said.
“I’m the only person in America who came to secure the border. No one else in congress. No president. No border patrol. Nobody in our country would do this so I had to do it myself,” she wrote in an Instagram post last week.
