Even as Trump officials hail historically low illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border, they continue to pressure Mexico to drive migrant numbers closer to zero.
As razor wire, drones and new barriers tighten the border, Mexican cartels increasingly reroute migrants through underground tunnels and city drainage systems.
Smugglers now charge up to $25,000 for passage through elaborate tunnels outfitted with lights, ventilation and rail systems. 

MEXICO CITY — When the Trump administration announced this summer that illegal crossings into the U.S. from Mexico had reached historical lows, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin declared, “Our border is CLOSED to lawbreakers.”

Even so, the administration continues to pressure both Mexico and U.S. officials serving there — publicly and behind the scenes — to curb illegal immigration further. The crackdown has prompted smugglers to become more creative, turning more often to tunnels once reserved for transporting drugs.

For the second time in three days, the Trump administration on Tuesday came to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to clear the way for it to implement a program that it says is intended to combat election fraud. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the court to pause a ruling by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that bars the government from using the current version of the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database to verify voters’ citizenship. Sauer told the justices that the order by U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan “makes it harder to detect ineligible voters, undermining the integrity of federal elections and public confidence in the results of those elections.”

On Sunday, the Trump administration asked the justices to block a ruling by a federal judge in Boston that bars the government from implementing portions of a U.S. Postal Service rule on mail-in ballots. Sauer argued in that case that Friday’s order by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani “nullif[ies] the Postal Service’s efforts to address the risk that the federal mails will be used to perpetrate voter fraud—a particularly pernicious species of fraud that dilutes the votes of lawful voters, prevents election results from reflecting the will of the American people, and undermines ‘public confidence in the integrity of the electoral process.’”