A group of illegal immigrants used a drain pipe Wednesday to sneak into the country in Hidalgo, Texas, according to Border Patrol agents who made the arrest.
Agents were tipped to the group after being told people were using the local sewers.
“In total, authorities arrested 20 migrants who were found to have used the drainage system to enter the country,” Customs and Border Protection said.
A day earlier, in Brownsville, three migrants were found inside a drainage pipe in that city.
Agents spotted shoe prints entering the pipe and apprehended the three when they tried to come out.
Those incidents followed another attempt through Hidalgo’s drains on Sept. 18, when agents arrested three groups of migrants.
Agents say they spotted people going into the drain in the early morning. They joined with local police officers to set up a perimeter and nabbed one group of three, then an hour later caught three more.
Four more were arrested that same night as they left the drains.
All of those migrants were Mexicans or Hondurans.
Migrants are turning to drains, culverts and canals to try to keep out of sight as they make their way deeper into the U.S.
One migrant died in Southern California in January as a group of more than two dozen people tried to sneak through a drainage culvert in San Ysidro.
That culvert had a gate blocking access to the U.S. side, but smugglers sent the migrants through anyway, paying one man $500 to cry for help to try to get agents to open the gate, according to court documents. The dead man was his brother, who was also acting as a guide for the group.
Another woman was unconscious but agents managed to revive her.