tunnel

MEXICO CITY — When the Trump administration announced this summer that illegal crossings into the U.S. from Mexico had reached historical lows, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin declared, “Our border is CLOSED to lawbreakers.”

Even so, the administration continues to pressure both Mexico and U.S. officials serving there — publicly and behind the scenes — to curb illegal immigration further. The crackdown has prompted smugglers to become more creative, turning more often to tunnels once reserved for transporting drugs.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, in the White House on Sept. 4, has been the main architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

(Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)

Stephen Miller, the main architect of President Trump’s immigration policies, has been in near-daily communication with senior U.S. law enforcement officials, including the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ronald Johnson, looking for new ways to stop migrants from entering the United States, according to people familiar with the conversations.

An average of 400 migrants were apprehended while crossing into the U.S. every day in July, according to data by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. It’s a precipitous drop from the thousands who crossed daily at the peak of a migrant surge in 2022.

Sometimes the number of crossings has dropped to 200 a day. But for Miller, that reduction is still not enough, said sources not authorized to speak publicly about internal matters. Miller’s goal, they said, is to have zero migrants entering the U.S.

Miller has directed officials to increase investigations into migrant smuggling networks, people familiar with his directives said.

Mexican Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco Álvarez, left, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington, where they met Aug. 26 to discuss what the minister called “priority issues on the bilateral agenda.”

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Since returning to the White House in 2025, Trump has often asked Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to crack down on immigration. On Aug. 26, Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Mexico’s foreign minister, Roberto Velasco Álvarez, and urged him to take “decisive action on illegal immigration,” according to a statement from the State Department.

The Trump administration’s border crackdown has been so effective it’s forced some smugglers literally underground.

Mexican drug cartels are increasingly turning to tunnels built for drug smuggling to ferry migrants into the United States. They are linking into sewer drains, according to people familiar with the trend.

Though the number of migrants apprehended while using tunnels appears to be relatively small — there are no hard statistics — authorities believe it is increasing, given the crackdown on the border and financial incentive for the cartels to smuggle people and not just drugs.

“Enforcement along the border has become more robust and that has increased the demand for alternative methods of passage,” said David Shirk, director of the Justice in Mexico program at the University of San Diego.

The Trump administration has added extra miles of razor wire to border fences, has increased surveillance technology and uses autonomous Predator drones with surveillance and infrared technology to monitor swaths of the border for migrants crossing into the U.S.

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1. A bulldozer sits near Santa Elena Canyon on Aug. 14 in Big Bend National Park, Texas, where contractors have begun construction of a border wall. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images) 2. Protesters gather in San Antonio, Texas, on Aug. 28 to demonstrate against construction of a border wall in Big Bend National Park. (Alma E. Hernandez/San Antonio Express-News via Getty Images)

And, picking up on Trump’s “build the wall” pledge from his initial run for president, more border barriers are being built.

Trafficking through cross-border tunnels is not new. In 2023, Ken Salazar, then the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, said there were at least 200 tunnels that spanned the border. Many of them were found linking Tijuana and San Diego.

But in a twist, some tunnels now connect to drainage and sewer systems. This May, authorities captured 19 migrants, including three unaccompanied minors, in the San Diego storm water drainage system. A remote surveillance camera spotted the migrants emerging from the system.

The smugglers were two brothers who had previously been charged with methamphetamine trafficking in the Northern California town of Yreka in 2017.

Smugglers employ tunneling specialists whose work is getting more sophisticated, outfitting the tunnels with lights, ventilation systems and sometimes mini rail lines. Many tunnels are faster, safer and much more expensive for migrants who would otherwise face increasingly dangerous mountain and desert routes, experts said.

Last year, Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations agents also found a tunnel that ran under the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico into El Paso.

The passage tapped into the El Paso sewer system, where, according to U.S. authorities, migrants surfaced from a manhole. They climbed into a box truck outfitted with a trap door that was parked over the manhole.

Cartels charge migrants from Latin America up to $15,000 dollars each to use tunnels to El Paso, an official familiar with the dynamics said. For people from the Middle East or Southeast Asia, the price can be as high as $25,000.

The tunnel traffic continues to vex U.S. officials.

A Homeland Security Task Force drug investigation of a supposed retail store in Otay Mesa, Calif., resulted in the discovery of a sophisticated cross-border tunnel leading to Tijuana.

(U.S. attorney’s office)

In Tijuana, one tunnel discovered last year stretched from Tijuana to what appeared to be a Buy 4 Less store near the Otay Mesa port of entry. The store never had customer traffic, so U.S. law enforcement suspected it hid a tunnel and began monitoring the business.

Authorities raided the building and found the entrance to a tunnel controlled by the ruthless Jalisco New Generation Cartel. It was 55 feet deep and nearly half a mile long. It featured a hydraulic lift, ventilation and a rail and cart system. Authorities stopped a freezer truck after it left the location and seized more than a ton of cocaine, worth roughly $45 million.

In 2024, U.S. law enforcement found a tunnel in the border town of San Luis, Ariz. Authorities said it was used to smuggle migrants and drugs. Its exit was hidden in an abandoned KFC restaurant.

This article was co-published with Puente News Collaborative. Fisher is a special correspondent.

Sept. 4 (UPI) — Rescuers pulled two workers alive from hydropower project tunnel in Nepal nine days after devastating flash foods in the central Bagmati region and across the border in Tibet killed thousands of people, with as many 4,000 still unnaccouted for.

The two men, a supervisor on the Trishuli 3A Hydropower Station who was in a critical condition and a foreman, were taken by helicopter to the hospital in Kathmandu. At least one body was also pulled from the tunnel.

Tunnelling expert Arnold Dix told the BBC the rescue was the result of a highly complex and painstaking effort using engineering processes, old maps and aerial and satellite imagery to find the entrance of the tunnel, on a mountainside before the floods but now underground, and blast their way ahead, foot by foot.

At the same time they had to clear the tunnel at the Trishuli 3A Hydropower Station of water, using pumps and excavators to dig channels to drain the water to the river on the outside.

The team eventually reached two men more than 550 feet beneath the ground after digging “a tiny” person-sized tunnel, pulling foreman Sanjaya Shah and project supervisor Kabir Maharjan early on Friday, local time, and now hope to rescue more people.

Shah who was conscious but dazed, said he had been in the control room with 40-45 others when disaster struck and that he became trapped as he ran up and down the tunnel telling workers to get out.

“It’s like layer upon layer of miracles. We got two people out. If we were playing at a casino, some might say it’s time to walk away, but we say game on, time to take on the house,” said Dix, who credited Nepalese Army engineers for their expert assistance, particularly with the explosives used.

Dix said rescuers were 200 feet into the tunnel with another 500 feet to go where he said he believed there was a “Goldilocks zone” where he anticipated they may find more people alive from among dozens of people believed to remain trapped.

The “Goldilocks zone,” a space with conditions supporting life, is located on the uppermost level of the hydropower station.

“We got two people out. If we were playing at a casino, some might say it’s time to walk away, but we say game on, time to take on the house,” said Dix.

Some locals claim the tunnel is haunted by the ghost of a murdered teenager.

Hidden at the bottom of the world is a tunnel which is shadowed in years of history. Thousands of cars travel through it daily, and as they do, they sound their horns.

The tunnel is a cacophony of beeping and tooting at all hours of the day and night – all thanks to a murder which has haunted the city since 1931. The Mount Victoria Tunnel is part of a well-used stretch of highway in Wellington, New Zealand.

According to legend, the reason drivers lean on their horns as they travel through the tunnel is in tribute to murdered teenager Phillis Symons.

Phillis was buried alive in dirt fill during the tunnel’s construction.

She was only 17 and was pregnant when her boyfriend George Coats, a worker on the construction of the tunnel, knocked her unconscious with a pipe.

George then dumped Phillis in the dirt fill. Her body was found hunched over, meaning she had tried to escape the soil.

George was sentenced to death for the murder, and was hanged in December 1931.

The tunnel was opened to the public in the same year.

Now, almost a hundred years later, the 632 metre long tunnel echoes constantly with the sound of car horns which residents believe either wards off spirits, or pays tribute to the memory of Phillis.

Some locals say the tunnel is haunted – others say the constant beeping is the only thing that haunts the road.

The tunnel is the subject of a £1.27billion (between NZD$2.9b and NZD$3.8b) infrastructure project which would see a second tunnel built alongside the first to try and alleviate the severe bottlenecks which occur in the tunnel.

The current one is only two lanes, and frequently closes due to crashes, causing traffic jams that can last hours.

According to RNZ, the project has been granted fast track approval – but as of last week there was still no expected start date.

This train track claimed the lives of hundreds of people during its 24 years of construction.

Burrowing beneath a towering mountain range in Massachusetts is a railway tunnel with a long and blood soaked history. The Hoosac Tunnel travels between North Adams in the west to the town of Florida, Massachusetts in the east. It was constructed in 1851 and finally finished in 1975.

However, during its 24 years of construction, this railway tunnel claimed the lives of around 200 men, giving it the terrifying nickname of ‘the Bloody Pit’. Men were killed by explosions, falling rocks and accidents with ladders and scaffolding, leading to a strike in 1865 where workers burned buildings in protest of the horrific working conditions.

Over the year following the strike, a further 14 men were killed or injured at work in the tunnel.

On October 17, 1867, the tunnel saw the deadliest accident of its 24 years in construction.

Workers were digging a 1,028 foot long vertical exhaust shaft when a candle ignited the fumes that had leaked from a lamp.

An explosion ripped through the shaft, setting the hoist alight. It collapsed into the shaft, trapping 13 men working at the base of the shaft inside the darkness.

The pumps were destroyed, and the shaft began to fill with water.

In a desperate attempt to save the men trapped below, a worker was lowered into the shaft the following day but was overcome by fumes and reported no survivors once he reached the surface again.

Horrifyingly, when workers reached the bottom of the shaft months later they found that at least some of the men had survived long enough to build a raft to escape the rising flood waters before they suffocated.

The men died due to a lack of oxygen as fires burned through the air.

Despite the tragedies that befall construction, the tunnel was finally completed and used by both passenger and freight trains.

Today, the tunnel still stands but is only used for freight trains.

DISRUPTION is continuing to cause problems for Brits heading to a major UK airport today.

If you are flying from London Heathrow Airport today you might want to check your travel route before you head off.

It comes after a tunnel at the airport has closed, leaving only one open for trains to head through.

A water leak forced the closure between Hayes & Harlington and Heathrow Airport and today, Elizabeth Line services running through the tunnel are facing severe delays.

Heathrow Express services between London Paddington and the airport are impacted, with just two running per hour instead of four.

Cancellations and delays are expected until the end of the day

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Tickets are being accepted across the Piccadilly Line as well as numerous different buses.

In a statement on Heathrow Airport’s website, it says: “Due to a partial tunnel closure, the Heathrow Express and Elizabeth Line are operating a reduced service to/from Heathrow.

“The Piccadilly line is operating as normal. Pre-paid Heathrow Express tickets will be accepted on the Elizabeth Line.

“Please allow extra time for your journey. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

Delays and cancellations also occurred yesterday.

There were also warnings in place for those travelling to Gatwick Airport due to local wildfires.