Border Patrol agents discover hidden border tunnel in south Texas

HIDALGO, Texas (KTRK) -- Organized crime seems to be finding a way around border security.

Patrol agents discovered a new tunnel under construction that would have gone under a potential border wall.

The tunnel is reportedly almost impossible to see standing near the Rio Grande, because it sits at the bottom of a 30-foot embankment.

But as border patrol agents discovered, the nearly 60-foot long tunnel is still in progress.

"You've seen them on the news in Arizona and New Mexico and stuff like that," Hidalgo County Water Improvement District 3 General Manager Orthal Brand Jr. told KRGV-TV. "I've never seen one in the Valley. That's the first one I've seen that's in our backyard."

The construction of the tunnel isn't only part of the problem.

It's location at the bottom of the embankment makes it almost impossible for equipment to get down there.

"It's hard for me to put a piece of equipment on an edge of a 30-foot sand cliff, to reach down and try to collapse something without putting my own piece of equipment and my own operator at risk," Brand said.

Brand says he, U.S. Border Patrol and U.S. Fish and Wildlife will work together to try to find a way to get rid of the shortcut.