(NewsNation) — Under the southern border, there are tunnels you can walk in for hours on end — and more are being made, officials tell NewsNation.
“I got a call yesterday that there’s more tunnels,” said Victor Avila, retired ICE/HIS supervisory special agent, during a live Q&A Monday.
Though details were scarce, Avila told NewsNation “a couple more” tunnels were discovered west of El Paso, Texas, recently, seemingly in response to a border crackdown under President Donald Trump.
Art Del Cueto, the vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, said tunnel use will increase as security tightens under the Trump administration.
“The cartels are going to find a way to get their product across, and tunnels are going to be their thing,” Cueto said on the livestream.
“You’re going to see seizures hit the roof … you’re going to see bodies, you’re going to see drugs,” Avila explained, saying he predicts these “old methods” of smuggling will make a resurgence.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 1,179 people nationwide Monday — up from the previous day’s 956 and indicative of a shift in border protocol.
The president fortified the border’s military presence in the first days of his term, sending hundreds of troops from Kentucky, Washington and New York to posts along the nation’s border.
At least 300 troops landed in El Paso, Texas, over the weekend, and sources tell NewsNation that at least 500 soldiers are in California.
And as military personnel grows, so will discoveries, said retired ICE field office director John Fabbricatore.
“We’re going to see a lot more military technology down there, so we can find these tunnels,” Fabbricatore said.
Fabbricatore added that military personnel whose jobs were to find tunnels in Afghanistan will now do the same thing “on our border to keep our nation safe.”
But how do these tunnels go undetected? Cueto told NewsNation it’s because “we have communities on our borders that condone this type of behavior.”
Watch the full Q&A: