In April, Representative Eli Crane's (R-AZ) Subterranean Border Defense Act, which aims to combat instances of tunneling under the southern border by the Mexican drug cartels, passed in committee. The Arizona Congressman discussed the bill in a recent interview with Cactus Politics, stressing the importance of allocating resources to discover and destroy these tunnels to the point that sponsorship of his bill was bipartisan.
As previously reported, Rep. Crane drew attention to the persistent tunneling problem under the Southwest border. Since 1990, approximately 140 tunnels have been discovered, a number that, in his words, "I do not think it gets a lot of attention because, obviously, it is subterranean, and we do not know all of them."
The ability to detect these passages is further hampered by "our border checkpoints and in-between checkpoints are so overflowing with illegals coming into the country that it ties up a bunch of resources. And I think that makes it problematic because the tunnels are where they move a lot of the narcotics, but it is also where they could move weapons of mass destruction and some of the more serious terrorists if the price was right," Rep. Crane warned.
Hence, part of the Subterranean Border Defense Act would require the Department of Homeland Security to report annually on anti-tunnel actions to Congress, which can then regularly update strategies and defenses.
"It is hard for us to really allocate resources if we are not getting reporting and we do not have situational awareness of that threat," Crane continued, adding, "It is definitely a concern to many of us that have tried to be the canary in the coal mine about threats coming over the southern border and why Joe Biden's policies are so dangerous."
Cactus Politics asked if Crane's bill was receiving bipartisan support in the House, and the Arizona Congressman reminded us that Representative Lou Correa (D-CA) helped cosponsor it.
"[Rep.] Correa actually cosponsored this bill. He is a Democrat from California who also is in a border state; and so he is definitely aware of how serious an issue this is. And so it is great because if it is not bipartisan, it makes it that much harder to actually get into law," Crane concluded.
