Texas Man Sentenced To Prison For Using Cross-Border Tunnel To Smuggle Migrants

A man from Texas was sentenced to almost three years in prison for using a cross-border tunnel to smuggle migrants.

The man in question, 20-year-old Oscar Ivan Carrillo, worked with other co-conspirators to create tunnels connecting to a storm drain.

He and others guided migrants through the tunnel to reach El Paso, from where a box truck with a trap door drove over a manhole cover, according to Border Report. Migrants would then climb out the tunnel and through the trap door without being detected.

The tunnel was found in January 2025. Carillo was named in a four-count indictment in April and arrested in June. In November he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to use a border tunnel and has now been sentenced to 33 months in prison.

Authorities have found several tunnels throughout the years, and the Department of Homeland Security began in November the process to allocate $100 million to locate and destroy such infrastructure.

Authorities noted it is designed to "provide continuous detection capabilities in high-risk areas," including finding tunnels and detecting where they cross the border.

Agents added that the Persistent Surveillance and Detection System (PDS) can also be used to "forecast the trajectory of a detected tunnel to the suspected entrance on the Mexican or Canadian side of the border, and to estimate the subsurface path to the exit point on the U.S. side of the border."

The contract is set to help expand operations in California and different points in the southwest border. The project is set to end on December 31, 2026.

• Authorities Find Fewer Than 6,500 Migrants At The Southwest Border In December
• Truck Driver Faces Charges After Attempting To Smuggle 14 Migrants Inside a Truck

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