Homeland Security officials are searching for the makers of an underground tunnel crossing from Mexico under the U.S. border into El Paso, Texas.
Border Patrol and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents discovered the “man-made smuggling tunnel” during an inspection of a storm drain, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a Friday press release. The agency said the tunnel is equipped with electricity and ventilation and is used by “criminal organizations” to smuggle illegal border crossers.
The discovery highlights the dire situation along the U.S.-Mexico border that President Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will pass on to President-elect Donald Trump, policy experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Tunnels have always been a feature of the border, but Biden and Mayorkas diverted so much of DHS resources to bringing in and processing illegal aliens that they took their eyes off the ball,” Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow on immigration at the Heritage Foundation, said in an email to the DCNF.
Officials said the six-foot-tall, four-foot-wide structure was built over the past year and called its discovery “historic,” KTSM reported. CBP said federal, state and local law enforcement agencies and Mexico’s government are working to find and arrest the builders.
“The only conceivable need for tunnels would be to traffic into the U.S. the worst – people, drugs, guns, and other [things] cartels don’t want seeing the light of day,” Hankinson said.
Agents found a suspected drug smuggling tunnel near the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona last month, the third one reported near the state in 2024, according to Newsweek. HSI also found one tunnel stretching 1,744 feet between California and Mexico in 2022.
WATCH: Shocking Border Tunnel Discovery—Complete with Electricity and Ventilation—Exposes Deadly Crisis
A sophisticated man-made tunnel, equipped with electricity and ventilation, has been uncovered beneath the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas.
This alarming discovery… pic.twitter.com/4WfPYUMVRI
— Wesley Hunt (@WesleyHuntTX) January 12, 2025
Ammon Blair, a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and former Border Patrol agent, also said that the Biden administration made the tunnel problem worse by admitting record numbers of migrants.
“By concentrating efforts on the ‘safe, orderly, humane and regular’ importation of foreign nationals rather than the safety and protection of U.S. citizens and our sovereignty, the administration created greater gaps along the border,” Blair told the DCNF in an email.
Blair added that lack of surveillance on private land near the border and drug cartels’ evolving methods make it harder for agents to find threats.
“Anyone wanting to enter the U.S. illegally under Biden who didn’t have a criminal or immigration record already could do so easily,” Hankinson told the DCNF.
“Let’s hope the Trump administration can do a better job of keeping us safe,” Hankinson said.
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