Latest news with #Tijuana
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Terrifying underground smuggling tunnel is discovered lurking beneath California warehouse
A massive tunnel meant to smuggle drugs into the US has been recently discovered and shut down by US border officials. The underground corridor is nearly 3,000 feet long, starting under a home in Tijuana, Mexico, US Border Patrol announced Wednesday. On the American side of the border, the tunnel runs more than 1,000 feet with an exit near a warehouse in Otay Mesa, south of San Diego, California. The clandestine crawlway was discovered in April, when it was still under construction, the agency revealed. Despite being unfinished, the Border Patrol described it as 'highly sophisticated,' equipped with electrical with wiring, lighting and ventilation systems. It had also been outfitted with a track system meant to move large quantities of drugs into the US. The Sinola Drug Cartel, formerly led by Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, is more than likely behind the construction. The drug kingpin remains in a federal super max facility in Colorado, however, the mafia he ran remains a dominant force on the border, still considered one of the most powerful in Mexico. The underground corridor was still under construction, but is described as 'highly sophisticated' due to the electricity, ventilation and drug transportation system The Mexican criminal organization is notorious for its use of clandestine man-made channels to move narcotics and people. Since first finding the tunnel, US officials have been able to map it, revealing measures 42 inches in height, 28 inches in width and ran approximately 50 feet underground at its deepest point. Authorities have also been to private residence in the Tijuana neighborhood of Nueva Tijuana where the opening is. Mexican police found freshly laid tile used to hide to opening. The discovery comes at a time when security at the border tighter than ever before, with historically low numbers of border crossings under the Trump Administration. 'As we continue to strengthen the nation's air, and maritime border security, it's not surprising that foreign terrorist organizations would resort to underground routes,' Jeffrey D. Stalnaker, Acting Chief Patrol Agent of the San Diego Sector stated. 'Disruption of narcotics smuggling tunnels is critical to protecting American lives. I'm grateful for the exceptional work of the Tunnel Team agents who placed themselves in danger, as well as the cooperation of our Mexican law enforcement partners.' Since 1993, more than 95 tunnels have been found and decommissioned in the San Diego area. This most recent tunnel will be filled with cement to stop it from being used. In January, another tunnel was found in El Paso, Texas. The passage way, found on January 9 and hidden in a storm sewer system, spans all the way from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico to the Texas city of El Paso . That tunnel was finished and had been used to smuggle people, including those who paid upwards of $20,000 each to guarantee passage into the US. On the Mexican side, the tunnel measures about 1,000 feet and has lighting, ventilation and is reinforced to stop collapses, Mexican officials said.
CTV News
3 hours ago
- CTV News
Border patrol finds tunnel from Tijuana to San Diego
It's believed the tunnel was used to transport large amounts of contraband. Border Patrol/KRDO via CNN Newsource SAN DIEGO, California (KRDO) -- U.S. Customs and Border Patrol says they found an intricate tunnel leading from Tijuana to San Diego. Border Patrol says the tunnel featured electrical wiring, lighting, and ventilation systems. It's believed the tunnel was used to transport large amounts of contraband. According to the agency, the San Diego Sector Tunnel Team found the tunnel while it was still 'actively under construction.' Even though the tunnel was not yet complete, officials say at its current stage, it was estimated to be about 2,918 feet long. Border Patrol believes it was intended to have an exit point near a California commercial warehouse space. Border Patrol, Homeland Security, and Mexico officials were able to locate the entrance point, which they way was at a Tijuana residence. After serving a warrant, officials say they found that the tunnel entrance had been covered up with a freshly-laid tile floor. According to Border Patrol, there have been 95 tunnels located and decommissioned in the San Diego area since 1993. By Celeste Springer
Fox News
a day ago
- Fox News
Border Patrol agents shut down massive drug smuggling tunnel between Tijuana and San Diego
U.S. Border Patrol agents recently discovered and disabled a nearly 3,000-foot-long narcotics smuggling tunnel sitting beneath the US-Mexico border. Agents found the tunnel — which linked Tijuana and San Diego — in early April while it was actively under construction. The underground passageway ran under part of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry and had a projected exit point near or inside a commercial warehouse space in San Diego, according to an announcement from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Upon entering the "highly sophisticated" tunnel, authorities were met with barricades seemingly placed to prevent law enforcement from finding its entrance, the announcement noted. The tunnel — which reached depths of around 50 feet underground at its deepest point — measured 2,918 feet long, 42 inches tall and 28 inches wide. It was equipped with lighting, electrical wiring, ventilation systems and a track system for transporting large amounts of contraband. Border Patrol agents — working alongside Homeland Security Investigations and Government of Mexico authorities — found the entrance point to the tunnel on Monday inside a house in the Nueva Tijuana neighborhood in Tijuana. The entrance had recently been covered up with freshly laid tile, according to the announcement. Thousands of gallons of concrete will soon be poured into the tunnel to prevent it from being used by Foreign Terrorist Organizations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection noted. "As we continue to strengthen the nation's air and maritime border security, it's not surprising that foreign terrorist organizations would resort to underground routes," Jeffrey D. Stalnaker, acting chief patrol agent of the San Diego Sector, said in a statement. "Disruption of narcotics smuggling tunnels is critical to protecting American lives." More than 95 tunnels have been decommissioned in the San Diego area since 1993. U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
New York Times
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Tacos de Lengua' Review: Finding the Rhythm of the Night
Martita Abril's 'Tacos de Lengua' performance had been going for a while when the party started. At the Chocolate Factory Theater in Queens, where the work debuted on Friday, a door opened and audience members were invited to cross from the performance space into the adjoining storage warehouse, where the Mexican band Directos de la Sierra was already brightening the space with music. Abril served mezcal in ceramic cups with a garnish of chapulines, or roasted grasshoppers. Her aunt Raquel Quiñonez was dishing out tacos, packed with chopped tongue. But 'Tacos de Lengua' had begun in a darker place. Abril had entered the theater hunched over, pushing a rolling cart with four red balloons attached. Doggedly, she made her way onto the stage, which had been decorated with a shrine of candles and branches. Climbing onto the cart, she retrieved a cleaver from inside it and, with a sudden slashing motion, popped one of the balloons. Red confetti rained down, but the mood wasn't festive. The soundscape was faint recordings of the streets of Tijuana; Abril grew up regularly crossing the border between Mexico and the United States. Her actions in this opening section were highly spare and repetitive, and it took her a long time to pop all four balloons. Mostly, she kept pushing the cart — joined at her back by her mother, Martha Quiñonez, then also by her aunt. The line of women, bent over, sometimes swapping places as they pushed onward, embodied quiet struggle across generations. 'Tacos de Lengua' expressed border life from multiple angles. It was Martha, playing the accordion and singing, who ushered the audience into the party room. There, along with the drinks and dancing, were shadows of the other space. Amid stacks of theatrical equipment, you could spy slices of watermelon but also a cardboard sign reading 'Rompe ICE,' a political pun combining the Spanish word for 'icebreaker' with the acronym for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Periodically, Abril disappeared behind one of the walls of stuff and swung a hatchet into a log, her form ominously silhouetted. Then she yelled 'Qué siga la fiesta' ('Keep the party going') and Directos de la Sierra struck up the folk song 'Cielito Lindo' or a tune by the band Los Tigres del Norte. After a while, Abril pushed her cart back across the border into the theater, taking some of the party with her in the form of mini disco lights. To Corona's 1990s club classic 'The Rhythm of the Night,' she rolled her head in circles and kicked a leg backward again and again. 'Qué siga la fiesta,' she shouted once more, and the party continued. The rhythm of the night was the back-and-forth between austere performance art and a loose family gathering for an audience of mostly fellow artists. If the performance side was a little skimpy, Abril was a generous hostess — sharing the pleasures of her culture with some bitterness and threat.
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
LA grandmother self-deports over Trump fears
A grandmother has chosen to self-deport over fears she'd be kicked out of the United States and sent to Mexico by Donald Trump . The 51-year-old woman, identified only as Regina, has lived in South Los Angeles since 1989 but boarded a one-way flight to Mexico City on June 7 and left her life behind. Her daughter, Julie Ear, said her mother had become frightened over the Trump Administration's continued efforts to crack down on illegal immigration and deportations. 'After decades of hard work in the US, she made the difficult decision to return home, not because she wanted to, but because it was the only option left,' Ear wrote on a GoFundMe for her mother's new life. Regina had been working to gain citizenship, and meanwhile had raised her family and worked as a garment worker in the city's Fashion District. As Regina boarded her flight, her family drove to Tijuana, Mexico, to say goodbye, as she leaves behind three children and three grandchildren. 'She was afraid they would come to her house,' Ear told KTLA 5 . 'She was afraid to drive, to be pulled over and taken in.' 'The worst part was saying goodbye to her kids and grandchildren. That was the hardest part for her.' She said that her mother decided not to take advantage of Trump's Project Homecoming, which offers financial aid including government funded flights and an 'incentive' of $1,000 to those who self deport. 'It honestly feels like a trap,' Ear said. '[Especially] once we give up that control to somebody else, to the government that is obviously not on our side.' Ear videoed her mother's journey and posted it on social media, where it went viral. The compilation of videos shows her family getting up at 5am with her mom in the back of the car. Regina and her family were videoed journeying into Tijuana and spending time in the airport together before her flight. 'She made this decision months ago and even though it breaks my heart, I'd rather see her leave than live here in fear,' Ear wrote on Instagram. 'She is the most Americanized person I know and a total diva! She has spent most of her life in the US, so this is going to be a huge adjustment for her.' Regina was seen tearfully hugging her family members in heartbreaking moments throughout the video as they said goodbye. 'I just hugged her so close to me,' Ear told KTLA 5. 'I kissed her. I kept telling her, "Don't worry, Mom. I'm going to see you very soon".' After landing in Mexico, Regina was able to see her mother for the first time in 22 years. A father-of-four self-deported to Mexico with his American wife and four US born children due to the same fears harbored by Regina and her family. Cenobio Feliciano-Galeana crossed into the United States illegally when he was 18, and since then has built his life in America. But despite his children and his wife, he was unable to obtain citizenship or a green card. Now, following the ruthless crackdown on illegal immigrants and the looming threat of ICE agents, Cenobio made the decision to self-deport. At the end of the year, Ashlee, Cenobio's wife, plans to move with her four children to a country they have never known, just to keep the family together. Since they began their relationship, Ashlee says she and her family have been trying to get Cenobio through the process to gain legal status in the U.S., with no luck. Several lawyers and thousands of dollars later, she says not even being married to a U.S. citizen helps Cenobio's cause. 'If I had a penny for every time somebody has said that, I'd have the money to pay for those lawyers,' she said. She says the lawyers initially told them they had a fifty-fifty chance of getting Cenobio lawful permanent residence or citizenship. After the Trump administration was sworn in, she says she was told they had no chance. Their options were to stay and risk it—or have Cenobio self-deport and try again in 10 years. 'We have a six-year-old down to a nine-month-old baby. Ten years without a father? That is huge,' Ashlee said. For her, moving with him is the only option. Staying behind in the U.S. was out of the question. 'Wait for one day them to come into my home and take my husband away like a criminal and have my kids have to see that. And I decided that was not a choice I was willing to live with,' she said. Ashlee says Cenobio never committed a crime. His name doesn't bring anything up in the Utah court system. His only offense was being caught at the border twice and crossing illegally. That itself is a crime—one that Ashlee acknowledges but doesn't believe should be a life sentence. 'He was born on the wrong side of a line. He came here because he was starving. You know, what would you do if he truly went days without eating, starving? Where would your desperation lead you?' she said. The Trump Administration has heavily pushed for any illegal immigrants in the United States to self-deport, instead of being detained by ICE officials. United States Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem gave a stern warning to any undocumented immigrants in an advertisement pushing the deportations and arrests of illegal immigrants. 'Leave now. If you don't, we will find you and deport you,' Noem said. 'You will never return.' Self-deportation typically allows an individual to reenter the United States without the bans that follow from an official deportation. According to ICE, a bar on reentry for a specific period of time can be imposed once proceedings before a Department of Justice immigration judge take place. 'ICE may agree to seek dismissal of removal proceedings if you prove you left the US on your own - and that way, you may be able to avoid getting a final order of removal [and the negative consequences that come with it],' the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement website said. The reentry ban can range from five to twenty years depending on the severity of the crime. Individuals who were removed after a short unlawful stay in the US can face a ban of five years, while repeat offenders who have been removed multiple times can face around a twenty year ban. Anyone who was involved in 'serious criminal activity' or those who reentered the US illegally following deportation can face a permanent ban.
