http://www.kfmb.com/features/special_as ... p?id=54261

Local Sewers Used As An Illegal Passageway To U.S.

Last Updated:
06-20-06 at 6:23PM

In the fight over immigration, border patrol agents aren't just focusing on the fences near the border, but also what's going on beneath the streets. There's a maze of storm drains being used as illegal passageways from Mexico to the United States. News 8 went underneath for a look at one of these storm drains.

"This stretch of pipe from where we're at is roughly 200 feet to the border, and this can go on for up to 500, 600, 700, 800 feet," city worker Aaron Snelling said.

The Border Patrol believes illegal immigrants are being smuggled through the pipes all of the time -- and they're not alone.

"You can have some snakes, lizards, you've got cockroaches… basically anything that runs off the street," Snelling said.

Maneuvering inside the tunnel isn't easy. The ceiling is only four feet high, and the sludge on the ground is slippery.

"You can't see anything. You can't see the hand in front of your face. You don't know if you're going forward, backward or getting into a spot that there's no way out," Snelling said.

Snelling says the biggest danger though is the lack of oxygen. A detector brought along monitors the flammable gasses in the tunnel -- something the illegal immigrants have no way of knowing.

"If you come down here and you don't have some type of device or something monitoring the air you could pass out or become unconscious and no one would find you, you could die," Snelling said.

To begin the trip into the storm drain, the Border Patrol says immigrants use a blow torch to bust through a gate. Agent David Ybarra says he makes repairs here almost every day.

"They could use a hack saw, they could use a cutting torch… they've got all the same tools that we've got," Ybarra said.

The immigrants eventually end on the other side of the border, and if they time it right, out onto the street.

For now, it seems there are too many manholes, and too many opportunities to put a lid on this operation for good