Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited with U.S. troops and received an operational update at the southern border on Monday regarding the military’s efforts to secure it.

Hegseth visited Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, with President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, and received updates from U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command.

A successful mission at the border will include “100% operational control of the border,” he said.

Shortly after taking office, the president quickly declared a state of emergency at the southern border and has begun implementing a robust plan to stop illegal immigration and deport immigrants who came into the country illegally, both of which the military is assisting.

“To the cartels: All options are on the table. We will secure our border,” Hegseth warned on Monday.

“Because of President Donald Trump, this is a new era at the southern border, a new era of determination, a new era of cooperation. And at the Defense Department, we are proud to be a part of it,” he added.

The Department of Defense has deployed about 1,500 troops to the southern border, bringing the total number of U.S. forces assigned to the mission to roughly 4,000. Defense officials have said the tally could increase over the coming weeks and months.

The Air Force is also using aircraft to aid in the transportation of undocumented migrants to repatriating countries. One of those flights went all the way to India on Monday, according to Reuters.

“We are reoriented,” Hegseth said last week. “This is a shift. This is not the way business has been done in the past. This is the Defense Department will support the defense of the territorial integrity of the United States of America at the southern border, to include reservists, National Guard, and active duty in compliance with the Constitution for the laws of our land.”

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As a part of the administration’s broader immigration policy, Trump signed an executive order calling for the use of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to temporarily hold up to 30,000 migrants awaiting repatriation. They are not staying in the same facilities commonly associated with Guantanamo Bay, where the U.S. houses terrorists, including those responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

Multiple other administrations have used the naval base to house migrants.