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NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Vice Pres­ident Mike Pence reaf­firmed Pres­ident Donald Trump’s promise to build a security wall on the United States’ border with Mexico while speaking at the Con­ser­v­ative Political Action Con­ference on Thursday.

“Make no mistake about it, we’re going to build that wall,” Pence said.

Imme­di­ately fol­lowing the statement, the crowd at CPAC began chanting, “USA! USA! USA!”

Pence also reviewed some of the first-year accom­plish­ments of the Trump admin­is­tration.

He high­lighted the appointment of Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, Trump’s speech at the 45th March for Life, and the United States’ with­drawal from the Paris Climate Accord as major mile­stones since Trump’s inau­gu­ration last January. Addi­tionally, Pence praised Trump for his tax reform ini­tia­tives and his efforts in the ongoing war on terror.

“It’s been a year of promises made and promises kept,” Pence said.

Several college stu­dents attending the con­ference, however, shared their con­cerns about the Trump administration’s success and its future plans.

“We shut down the gov­ernment twice over the promise to build that wall,” said Jordan Kali­nowski, a College Repub­lican at Penn­syl­vania State Uni­versity. “Even though this was a cor­ner­stone of Trump’s cam­paign, unless Repub­licans and Democrats can reach an agreement, we’re not going to increase border security.”

Kali­nowski said he does not have faith that law­makers will be able to do this.

“Per­sonally, I don’t think we’ll ever get a wall,” he said.

Robert Whitehead, a Tufts Uni­versity College Repub­lican, said he’s a “huge skeptic” of the wall, even if that is an unpopular opinion among Trump sup­porters.

“I think a security fence would do just as well in most places,” he said.

Whitehead added that he believes that there are other more effective ways to strengthen border security, such as more effec­tively reg­u­lating people who have over­stayed their green card limits.

“The wall is a big applause line Trump people pull out a lot,” he said. “But it won’t accom­plish any­thing.”

Mark Sisson, a junior at Hastings College, said he sees the wall as a metaphor that the Trump admin­is­tration uses to showcase its reli­a­bility.  

“Trump is all about ful­filling promises. The wall is just another Trump promise,” he said. “I think there will be a border security upgrade in the coming years, but it will take some time.”

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  • Alexan­derYp­si­lantis

    Wall, fence, what does it matter as long as it’s effective in con­trolling our border security? We’ll need more ICE agents as well and we need to start ENFORCING the laws we have. During the Obama years that last wasn’t done, cre­ating con­tempt among illegal immi­grants for our laws. Trump ran on the promise to build the wall, Trump was elected on the promise to build the wall, so let it be written, so let it be done. Plenty of high paying con­struction jobs for Amer­icans building that wall-far better that that paying them EBT for doing nothing.

    • Jen­nifer Melfi

      I thought you said you were a lib­er­tarian?

      • Alexan­derYp­si­lantis

        I am a Lib­er­tarian, but that doesn’t mean being an anar­chist. ‘Any­thing goes…’ is not Lib­er­tar­i­anism. Rand Paul sup­ports stronger border con­trols, are you going to question his Lib­er­tarian cre­den­tials as well? You need to study up on the topic before ques­tioning someone else’s cre­den­tials.

        • Camus53

          An oft misused and even more mis­un­der­stand title in which many indi­viduals, you perhaps?, like to cloak them­selves and identify .

          • Alexan­derYp­si­lantis

            You want to com­plete that thought so I can under­stand it?

          • Jen­nifer Melfi

            THE WALL is a nation­alist and pop­ulist con­struct that flies in the face of the open borders that lib­er­tarians desire — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_perspectives_on_immigration (look at the articles they ref­erence).

            Love of borders is a paleo-con­ser­v­ative position. It is more likely that you are a Repub­lican.

          • Alexan­derYp­si­lantis

            Cur­rently the most effective border wall in the western hemi­sphere is the wall between Mexico and Guatemala/Honduras. Nations that don’t control their borders don’t remain nations very long. ‘Love of borders’ is a ridiculous statement, all nations have borders for a very sen­sible reason-they protect our nation­ality.

          • Jen­nifer Melfi

            sure. you can have an opinion.… just be sure to under­stand that your opinion is not that of a lib­er­tarian. It’s the opinion of a Repub­lican.

          • Alexan­derYp­si­lantis

            I stopped being ‘just a Repub­lican’ this last year, when I wit­nessed how limp-wristedly Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell sup­ported the President’s ini­tia­tives. I truly believe that most Democrats are political sheep to their Con­gres­sional leaders and most Repub­licans are political cowards-ter­rified of the US news media. My late father used to tell me ‘We don’t get our best people in gov­ernment.’, but I didn’t really appre­ciate what he meant until recently. Our elected offi­cials, with few excep­tions, are the most duplic­itous, self-focused and lying bunch of medi­oc­rities you’ll ever encounter. They hide-out in Wash­ington DC, among each other ‚because they know that outside of the con­fines of that city they’d be revealed to be the bunch of worthless syco­phants on God’s green earth that they are.