Inside underground El Paso storm drain system Border Patrol says cartels exploit to smuggle illegal migrants

Hidden beneath the streets of El Paso lies what U.S. Border Patrol agents picture arsenic "a metropolis underneath our city," a sprawling web of tempest drains built for flood power that authorities accidental Mexican cartels proceed exploiting to smuggle amerciable migrants from Mexico into the United States.

Fox News was granted rare, exclusive entree underground with the El Paso Sector’s elite Confined Space Entry Team (CSET), joining agents arsenic they navigated the unsafe maze of tunnels wherever Border Patrol says smugglers proceed searching for vulnerabilities, contempt amerciable crossings and apprehensions astatine historically debased levels.

Border Patrol told Fox News it takes smugglers and amerciable migrants 45 minutes to an hr to marque it done the tempest drains, which are blistery and tight, with oxygen levels that tin alteration oregon driblet unexpectedly.

The underground strategy stretches for miles beneath El Paso. According to Border Patrol, determination are 32 known introduction points from the Rio Grande into the United States and hundreds of exit points scattered passim neighborhoods, parks and commercialized areas crossed the city.

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Mexican constabulary run to adjacent and unafraid a clandestine passageway discovered astatine the borderline betwixt Mexico and the United States, successful Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, connected January 13, 2025. The tunnel, utilized for cause and quality trafficking, was secured by the Mexican National Guard and unit from the Attorney General's Office, who collected grounds earlier sealing it permanently. (David Peinado/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Jason Hartman, who leads the El Paso Sector’s Confined Space Entry Team, said 1 of the biggest challenges is wherever smugglers tin look erstwhile they marque it done the underground network.

"There are exit points into schools, into simple schools, wherever we sleep, wherever we play," Hartman told Fox News. "At immoderate point, you tin person smugglers oregon atrocious guys coming up successful your backyard, successful your playgrounds, successful your kids’ schools."

Just extracurricular 1 of the tempest drain entrances, grounds of erstwhile crossings remained behind. Fox News observed tools, a wallet and adjacent a Mexican driver’s licence near adjacent the entrance, items agents accidental migrants and smugglers often wantonness during the journey.

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A U.S. Border Patrol cause works astatine the borderline to seal an amerciable cross-border passageway which was primitively discovered connected January 10, 2025, betwixt El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico connected March 11, 2025. (HERIKA MARTINEZ/AFP via Getty Images)

Border Patrol guards introduction points adjacent the Rio Grande, and Hartman says agents trust connected exertion to observe question wrong the underground network.

"We bash person exertion that lets america cognize erstwhile they’re successful there, wherever they’re going, erstwhile they travel out," Hartman said. "Technology grows astatine a accelerated pace."

Still, immoderate negociate to gaffe through. So acold this fiscal year, Border Patrol says agents person apprehended 161 amerciable migrants that utilized El Paso’s tempest drain system. At the tallness of the borderline crisis, Hartman said agents sometimes encountered groups of up to 70 migrants moving done the underground maze. Today, helium said, it’s much communal to brushwood groups of conscionable 2 oregon three.

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Fox News got an wrong look astatine the underground web of tempest drains beneath El Paso, Texas, that Border Patrol says cartels are exploiting to smuggle amerciable migrants. (Fox News)

Agents assigned to the specialized squad acquisition extended grooming successful a full-scale replica tempest drain, learning however to run successful confined spaces portion perpetually monitoring oxygen levels that tin alteration without warning.

Hartman said the carnal conditions unsocial tin beryllium exhausting earlier agents ever brushwood a smuggler.

"For me, it’s the vigor and the clip and the air," Hartman said.

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Border Patrol says due to the fact that it is much hard and risky to illegally transverse the border, smugglers person dramatically accrued what they complaint migrants, betwixt $20,000 and $30,000 per person, to usher them done the tempest drains.

"Cartels are hopeless to effort to get radical in," said Hamid Nikseresht, a U.S. Border Patrol Special Operations supervisor. "They’re hopeless to effort to money the networks globally that they money due to the fact that this isn’t conscionable a localized issue. This is simply a planetary issue."