Former President Trump visited the U.S. southern border in Cochise County, Arizona, Thursday, amid a border crisis that has resulted in a surge of over 10 million illegal immigrants, and a drug crisis fueled by Mexican drug cartels.
Trump held a press conference in front of the border wall with parents of children killed by illegal immigrants, local law enforcement officials, and Brandon Judd, a Border Patrol agent who serves as president of the National Border Patrol Council.
Judd contrasted Trump’s dedication to border security to Harris’ complete lack of interest in the issue.
He recalled how Trump had traveled to Edinburg Texas on November 19, 2023, and helped serve Thanksgiving meals to over 230 Operation Lone Star service members stationed on the border, including Texas National Guard soldiers, off-duty Border Patrol agents, and Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) troopers.
“During that time, he shook over 200 peoples’ hands and listened to what they had to say,” Judd said.
He added that before building the border wall as president, Trump turned to the Border Patrol for input. “He listened to the men and women who were on the front lines,” Judd noted.
“Contrast that with Kamala Harris,” he continued, adding that he did his best to work with Biden’s “Border Czar.”
“I met with [Kamala’s] transition team. I told her transition team exactly what would happen if they got rid of [President Trump’s] policies. We suggested policies to her within her parameters and she refused to listen,” he said.
“She claims that she wants a humane, safe border, yet what she’s given us is absolute chaos. We had a safe border, she could have implemented policies, she refused to do this,” Judd declared.
Mark Dannels, the sheriff of Cochise County and Chairman of the National Sheriff’s Association, spoke about how Biden’s border crisis has negatively impacted his community and put his officers at risk.
Dannels said that over the past 31 months in his country, officers have booked 3,762 people in his jail for border-related crimes.
“These are not immigration issues,” he stressed. “These are border related crimes up to double digit murders. It’s cost my county $12.5 million. I get zero dollars from the federal government on that.”
The sheriff also detailed how the fentanyl crisis exploded under the Biden regime, explaining that in Trump’s last year in office, there were 2 million fentanyl pills seized at the border in Arizona.
“Last year, there were 111 million fentanyl pills seized in Arizona. You wonder where the epidemic’s coming from? It’s the cartels who have been allowed to commit these crimes,” he declared.
Dannels went on to describe the mortal perils of policing the Biden regime’s open border.
“We had a Border Patrol agent attacked early in the morning by two migrants who came across the border illegally—tried to cut his throat,” the sheriff said, adding that a few months later, he had a deputy who was hit by a smuggler’s vehicle going 100 miles per hour.
“We called the chaplain because we thought he was leaving us,” Dannels grimly noted. He said that the cartels routinely try to kidnap his deputies to torture them, and that’s how he lost one of his deputies.
“My deputies, troopers, agents, and officers in this county have endured more harm at the hands of the cartels and no one is addressing them,” Dannels lamented.
“We have tried everything to meet with President Biden and Vice President Harris, the Border Czar,” he continued. “This is the first administration in modern day that has not met with one American sheriff to address the border and that’s a shame.”
In contrast, Dannels noted that when Trump was president, he was invited to the White House on numerous occasions. “He was always there for us,” he said.
When Trump took the microphone, he recounted how Democrats had conducted a “coup” to take out Joe Biden after he had received 14 million votes and replaced him with Harris, who couldn’t even make to Iowa in 2020. “This is a very sad time for our country in many ways,” he said. “She got no votes and now she’s running against us,” Trump scoffed.
“She’s a radical left person who really wants to have an open border. She’ll never close the border,” Trump said.
“We have a Marxist that’s running. This country is not ready for a Marxist president,” Trump charged. “She will never build the wall. She doesn’t want to build the wall. If she changes her mind, it’s only because she wants to get elected. We need strong borders and strong elections, and we have neither.”
The former president pointed to the portions of unconstructed border wall stacked up nearby that was ready to be put up and could have in a matter of weeks. But the Biden regime had no use for it because they wanted to keep the border open, so on his first day in office, Biden issued an executive order to stop construction of the border wall.
“Much of it’s been sold for five cents on the dollar,” Trump lamented.
He said Biden is the worst president in American history “largely because of what is happening at the border,” adding that his regime let more than 20 million people come across the border, “many from prisons and jails, many from mental institutions, insane asylums, and many terrorists.”
“The level of criminality is unbelievable. It’s an onslaught of violence at a level that nobody’s ever seen before. For nearly four years as border czar, Comrade Kamala has seen a nation-wrecking invasion” of at least 20 million people, “including millions and millions of unvetted fighting-age men from over 158 countries,” he added.
Trump said the criminals coming to the USA through Biden’s open border, “make our criminals look like babies.”
“The level of viciousness in the crimes is unbelievable,” he said.
Alexis Nungaray, a broken-hearted mother of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, tearfully described how her daughter was brutally murdered by two illegal aliens earlier this summer in Houston.
“June 17th was the day her life was taken,” Nungaray said. “She was left with no clothing from the waist down, was thrown in a bayou, was strangled to death.”
She noted sadly that the senseless murder should never have happened.
“There were over 300 detention beds that they should have been at because they were detained,” Nungaray explained, “But they were released when they shouldn’t have been released. One had an ankle monitor. It didn’t stop anything,” she lamented.
“So now I have to through the rest of my life with my son always asking for his sister and I just really really really want everybody to please take into consideration how important border control is because we’re losing very innocent people to heinous crimes,” Nungaray said, her voice shaking with grief.
Trump said Jocelyn was looking down from Heaven at them right now.
“What Biden and Kamala have done to the families here with me and so many others, thousands and thousands of others, not only killed, but also really badly hurt, badly hurt to a point where they’ll never lead a normal life again. It’s shameful, and it’s evil,” said Trump.
While Trump was speaking, a search was underway in Cochise County for a man authorities said had made threats against the Republican presidential nominee.
When asked about the search, Trump said, “I haven’t heard about that — they probably want to keep it from me.”
The Cochise County Sheriff’s Office told Fox News Thursday afternoon it arrested 66-year-old Ronald Lee Syvrud at around 2:30 p.m. local time and took him into custody without incident.
The Harris Campaign reacted to Trump’s emotional press conference at the Arizona border Thursday night, posting on X:
“Trump: I was listening to people like Tom Homan, who is an incredible patriot (Tom Homan is a Project 2025 author).”
Start the discussion at community.amgreatness.com