2 hours ago
3
A hidden cross-border passageway utilized to smuggle migrants and contraband betwixt the US and Mexico volition beryllium sealed, Mexican borderline officials person said.
Running betwixt Ciudad Juarez successful Mexico and El Paso successful Texas, which beryllium adjacent to each different connected either broadside of the border, the 300m passageway was concealed successful a tempest sewer strategy and lone discovered past week - contempt authoritative estimates it took astatine slightest a twelvemonth to build.
Investigators are present looking into whether section officials knew of its construction, section media says.
Security has been ramped up connected some sides of the borderline up of the inauguration of Donald Trump, who has vowed to motorboat wide deportations of amerciable immigrants erstwhile successful office.
The passageway had been reinforced with woody beams to forestall collapses and was equipped with lighting and ventilation.
Such a operation could person taken 1 oregon 2 years to build, General Jose Lemus, commandant of Ciudad Juarez's subject garrison, told Mexican media.
The Mexican Attorney General's Office has been tasked with investigating whether section officials had been complicit successful the operation of the tunnel, Mr Lemus said.
The passageway was discovered connected 10 January, aft US borderline patrol agents removed a metallic sheet covering the introduction spread to the passageway and past alerted their Mexican counterparts to its existence.
The travel of migrants from Mexico successful the US has agelong overshadowed relations betwixt the 2 neighbours and became a defining contented of the 2024 US statesmanlike predetermination contention that culminated successful Trump's triumph past year.
Raids to detain and deport migrants surviving successful the US without support could statesman arsenic aboriginal arsenic Tuesday - the time aft Trump officially returns to the White House - according to US media reports.
Under US diplomatic pressure, Mexico has been conducting its largest ever migrant crackdown, bussing and flying non-Mexican migrants to the country's south, acold from the US border.
But Trump campaigned connected a committedness to seal the US-Mexico borderline and his menace to enforce 25% tariffs was seen arsenic an effort to unit Mexico into doing much to halt undocumented migrants from reaching the confederate borderline of the US.
In response, the recently-elected Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has said she volition inquire the US instrumentality enactment to halt the travel of weapons being smuggled from the US into Mexico.
English (US)