DRUG TUNNELS: CARTEL INNOVATION HERE

It cannot be seen as a surprise that Border Patrol agents uncovered a
drug tunnel cut under the Rio Grande from Juarez into El Paso.

It's logical to wonder if there are more.

The lone tunnel found last week comes after U.S. border security
personnel had already located more than 100 other tunnels along the
U.S.-Mexico border in California and Arizona. Some are crude passages,
as is the one located here in the vicinity of the Bridge of the
Americas. Some are quite elaborate, as found between Tijuana and the
U.S. border near San Diego.

Also, the city of El Paso has some 300 miles of storm drains, quite a
warren, making it conceivable that drug cartels can connect Juarez to
El Paso at more than one point. The Rio Grande bed is covered in
concrete at some points in the city, thus dirt can be excavated
without much danger of a cave-in or water leakage.

The bad news about drug tunnels: They are another way Mexico's cartels
move illegal contraband.

We check for drugs on our ports of entry. We have Border Patrol agents
along nearly 2,000 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. We now have drones
patrolling high above the border.

The better news: As border officials have pointed out, the cartels
must be getting more and more desperate. They resort to the
labor-intensive digging of tunnels. It can take many months to dig
from a protected location in Mexico, burrow under the border, and then
connect to a point in the U.S.

The frustrating part, and El Paso is an example, is that young boys,
small enough to navigate the smaller tunnels, can pass drugs through
the many openings that are part of our drainage system.

Drug cartels have proved to be as innovative as they are
murderous.

We've been locating illegal operations from the air. We chase them on
the ground. And now we have to guard the underground, too.