According to CBS News, in the last 29 years, border patrol agents have discovered at least 230 tunnels under the border between Mexico and the United States, ending up in either Arizona or California.
Kevin Hecht, the deputy patrol agent in charge in Nogales, told CBS News while he was in a storm drain, “This is already in place built by the cities to drain water. What they’re building is tapping into this and they’re building an illicit tunnel.” CBS News reported, “Earlier this month, the Mexican federal police discovered a tunnel that accessed a sewer system that flows into the United States and just last month Border Patrol sealed an unfinished tunnel that crossed into Arizona.”
Hecht commented on the training border patrol agents undergo: “In training you’ll go in this pipe and you’ll go ‘Ok, I’m above ground and crawling in a pipe, everything is fine,’ Ok let’s put you somewhere under some earth and see how you react … They’re smuggling contraband into these pipes … so we need to make that stop, so the point is to find those, remediate the tunnel, fill it with concrete and move on to the next pipe.”
Last October, The Guardian reported that in September, Mexican police had discovered an incomplete cross-border drug smuggling tunnel that had a rail track and a solar-powered lighting and ventilation system. The tunnel ran 627 feet, of which more than half was under California. – READ MORE