Currently, nearly a million federal workers are working every day without pay, including food safety inspectors, TSA agents, and border patrol agents. Thanks to Donald Trump, who promised his base a border wall to stop illegal immigration despite being told then and ever since that a wall would not be effective, these people are suffering.
One of the primary reasons a border wall will not be effective to end the issues Trump has used to fear-monger around the need for it – which includes drug and human trafficking smuggling – are the tunnels that people use to smuggle these things.
Yet another of these tunnels was discovered today in Arizona, the third found in the past month just in that area, built underneath a section of the already-existing border wall. AZ Central reports:
‘Mexican authorities uncovered another tunnel in Nogales, Sonora — across the border from Nogales, Arizona — which they suspect was used to smuggle drugs and people across the U.S.-Mexico border.
‘It’s the third time they have made such a discovery in less than a month, and comes amid President Donald Trump’s demand for funding to build more physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border.’
https://twitter.com/PoliciaFedMx/status/1083046777928900609?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1083046777928900609&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fbipartisanreport.com%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost-new.php
Mexican police authorities posted a video of the wall’s discovery and explained that drug and human trafficking smugglers are digging these passages increasingly in recent days as Trump’s small sections of border wall are built.
‘The video shows two police officers opening up a manhole underneath the extensive drainage channels that lie below the downtown areas in the twin cities of Nogales. The channels are used to ease the flow of runoff water during storms and typically flow north from Sonora into Arizona because of the terrain. But they are also commonly used in smuggling attempts.’
El Chapo built an extremely complex system of underground tunnels to smuggle drugs into the US. Something a wall wouldn’t be able to stop. This man is proof a wall won’t work ?! But you want him (and everyone else) to pay for one anyways ??? Okey https://t.co/TldX1N2G90
— Mercedes (@merr99_) January 9, 2019
The tunnel was 32 feet long and easily fit the two grown men who discovered it. Police did not reveal the exact location, but it was found somewhere near the exact area that Trump visited this week. When Trump returned to the White House, he tweeted that what he had seen proved that a humanitarian crisis exists in the area he visited that made a border wall even more obviously necessary.
Apparently, he wasn’t paying attention to the border patrol agents he insists are so important to him.
‘As the video progresses, it shows the officers inside the tunnel, following it to the point where it originates at an unknown location. The officer recording is heard asking, “Is that the exit?” A second officer responds “yes” as he pushes open the entrance to the tunnel overhead.’
The president claims that a wall is necessary to curb the flow of drugs into our country. Experience demonstrates that as walls go up, criminals go underground. More than 200 illicit cross-border tunnels have been discovered in the U.S. since 1990. https://t.co/KmwaXuBfSE
— Sen Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) January 8, 2019
One of those agents even showed Trump photos of some of the tunnels that had been discovered. Maria Lucio, a border patrol agent in charge of the McAllen station, showed Trump photos of two drug tunnels underneath a section of border wall. She told Trump:
‘This is the second tunnel recently that we’ve located. This is an area that we actually have wall…We’re doing such a great job in utilizing the right resources in that particular area, that they’ve (smugglers) become so frustrated they’re using other tactics. They’re actually digging tunnels. This is about 25 feet long, and 2 to 3 feet high.’
CBP officers also showed Trump blown-up photos of tunnels that were dug to get guns and drugs across the border. Neither border patrol agents nor Trump explained how a border wall would help stop the flow of drugs through tunnels and legal ports of entry. pic.twitter.com/NK7A9709qI
— Judith Harrington (@mollymom2011) January 11, 2019
Just as in every other policy that Trump has proposed, he’s refused to listen to experts or facts. With this particular policy, he’s hurting the very same American workers he also pledged to his base would be his first priority. Instead, it seems his first priority is the voting base that Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter swore he’d lose without that wall.
Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license
