CBP discovered these tunnels as former President Trump extended his 30??foot wall across hundreds of miles along the border. The former president was warned about the potential for tunnels but insisted that his wall would have anti??tunnel "technology."

The annual figures reveal an interesting jump in tunnel discovery in 2020. As President Trump frantically built out over 300 miles of his border wall in 2020, the agency discovered nearly one new tunnel per month. The 11 tunnels discovered that year were the highest for the period. One of those 2020 tunnels was said to be the "longest ever discovered." In 2022, one tunnel was found in "one of the most fortified stretches of the border."

I wrote about tunnels in "Why the Wall Won't Work."

If not over or through, some crossers may opt to go under. Tunnels are typically used more for drug smuggling, but they still create a significant vulnerability in any kind of physical barrier. From 2007 to 2010, Border Patrol found more than 1 tunnel every month. "For every tunnel we find, we feel they're building another one somewhere," Kevin Hecht, a Border Patrol tunnel expert, told The New York Times last year. A wall would likely increase the rewards for successful tunneling as other modes of transit grow more expensive. Trump is unconcerned, asserting that "tunnel technology" will rule out any such subterfuge. Effective tunnel detection equipment is seen as the Holy Grail of Border Patrol enforcement, but the Homeland Security Department's Science and Technology Directorate has so far concluded that no current technology for detecting tunnels beneath the border is "suited to Border Patrol agents' operational needs."