U.S. agencies point fingers over tunnel from Mexico

CNN
July 7, 1998

U.S. agencies point fingers over tunnel from Mexico

                  SAN DIEGO, Calif., July 7 (Reuters) - A border feud erupted on Tuesday
                  between two U.S. federal agencies over who was to blame for a tunnel from
                  Mexico that may have been used to smuggle hundreds of illegal immigrants.

                  The 400-foot-long (122 metres) passage under the frontier from Tijuana,
                  Mexico, was discovered in 1993 by the Drug Enforcement Administration
                  and was believed to have been used originally by narcotics traffickers.

                  The tunnel was meant to have been sealed off, but on Sunday night, the
                  Border Patrol detained 33 undocumented immigrants who had crossed into
                  the United States through the tunnel, which originates at a warehouse near
                  the Tijuana airport.

                  San Diego DEA spokesman Rod Adams said on Tuesday that once the
                  cases against the original cocaine smugglers had been adjudicated, "it wasn't
                  our problem anymore."

"We're trying to figure out why it happened. It kind of caught us by surprise."

                  However, the Border Patrol, which is responsible for blocking illegal
                  immigration, pointed the finger at the DEA, saying it was the drug prevention
                  agency's responsibility to seal off the so-called "narco-tunnel."

                  "It just wasn't obviously effective," said Border Patrol spokesman Salvador
                  Zamora. But he called for an end to the inter-agency feuding, adding: "Let's
                  not blame each other.

                  Let's find out what went wrong." He said the tunnel had been assumed to
                  have been sealed by the DEA with concrete and steel, but that on Sunday
                  when Border Patrol agents with infrared nightscopes spotted the illegal
                  immigrants, they discovered that the entrance to the tunnel had been
                  reopened.

Samora estimated that hundreds of people may have used the tunnel in the
past two weeks to enter the United States illegally.

                  Adams said his agency was carrying out a joint investigation with the Border
                  Patrol, the city of San Diego, the U.S. Customs Service and also the Army
                  Corps of Engineers, which he said had been using the tunnel as a "testing
                  site" to determine if others like it could be built under the border.

"We're trying to figure out ourselves who had responsibility," said Adams. "It
was our (legal) case, but as far as the physical tunnel, it wasn't ours."