Illegal migrants caught using expensive gear straight out of James Bond movie to cross border
A pair of undocumented immigrants were arrested after attempting to illegally cross the Rio Grande with expensive scuba gear on Thursday.
Officers from the Eagle Pass Police Department in Texas caught the two men who had hidden themselves under a bridge.
The border-crossers were found dressed in full-length wetsuits intended for scuba diving across the river, an approach bears an eerie similarity to the James Bond film Thunderball.
A community member reported two suspicious subjects in a residential neighborhood in south Eagle Pass, police said in a press release.
The two men were found to have come from Guatemala without documentation, according to EPPD.
Police also found the men to have been in possession of individual water propulsion devices. Similar models of the water propulsion devices, called the Robosea Seaflyer Seascooter, is sold on Amazon for $799.
The devices were presumed by police to have been intended for use to navigate through the Rio Grande waters, according to the release.
Both men were arrested and turned over to US Border Patrol for processing.
Officers from the Eagle Pass Police Department in Texas arrested two men found in scuba gear who had illegally crossed from Guatemala
The men each had personal water propulsion devices found in their possession, which police believe would have been used to navigate the Rio Grande
The two men were found to have come from Guatemala without documentation and were turned over to US Border Patrol for processing
Scuba gear used by the migrants replicates that used in the James Bond movie Thunderball starring Sean Connery
US Border Patrol did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment.
The story comes as the war against migrants continues under Trump and the President issued a chilling warning to illegal immigrants, urging them to leave the US on their own volition.
Migration continues to be a pressing issue across the globe, and was highlighted as one of the deadliest feats as travelers take desperate measures to cross borders for greener pastures.
Last year was the deadliest on record for migrants, with nearly 9,000 people dying worldwide, according to the United Nations.
'At least 8,938 people died on migration routes worldwide in 2024,' the fifth year that numbers have reached record highs, the UN's migration agency said on Friday.
'The tragedy of the growing number of migrant deaths worldwide is both unacceptable and preventable,' said Ugochi Daniels, the deputy director of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
'Behind every number is a human being, someone for whom the loss is devastating,' Daniels said.
'The actual number of migrant deaths and disappearances is likely much higher, as many have gone undocumented because of the dearth of official sources,' the IOM said.
2024 was the fifth year that figures reached record highs. Picture shows Spanish Coast Guard vessel tows a fibreglass boat with migrants onboard to the port of Arguineguin, on the island of Gran Canaria, December 2024
Attempts to cross borders have gone as far as dressing as patrol officers or for Tren de Aragua, one of the most notoriously dangerous gangs infiltrating America, it means ridding themselves of trademark tattoos.
However, the body markings may soon disappear as the criminal organization's leadership is now warning its members to stop getting the ink that announces them to authorities.
Federal law enforcement sources confirm to DailyMail.com that Tren de Aragua leadership is having its members already bearing the mob's signature tattoos burn them off.
Tren de Aragua's tattoos have become a flashpoint in recent days - as the Trump Administration leaned heavily on skin markings to ID Venezuelan migrants as gangsters and deport them to a supermax prison in El Salvador.
President Donald Trump justified the deportations, which did not follow the normal legal proceeding where judges sign off on each individual being removed from the US, using the controversial Alien Enemies Act.
As American courts decide if Trump is even legally able to apply the law to Venezuelan migrants, allegations have surfaced that the some of the deportees were wrongly accused of being Tren de Aragua by tattoos that were mistaken for the gang's insignia.
'Now we’re seeing the fact that they’re not getting tattoos because they’re aware that that’s an identifier for us,' Tim Sullivan, the Chief Patrol Agent for US Border Patrol Special Operations, told El Paso station KFOX-TV.
Tren de Aragua gang tattoos (pictured above) were part of a Department of Homeland Security bulletin shared with federal agents in 2023
Tren de Aragua is now operating in 21 states within the US
A suspected TdA mobster apprehended in El Paso, Texas. This suspected gangster even had the telltale signs of the criminal organization, like the clock tattoo on his chest
TdA, known to be incredibly adaptive and organized, issued the body art ban after its members interacted with Border Patrol and other federal agencies in the US.
'They try to learn from us as much as we learn from them, and that’s what also made them, to a certain point, a difficult target to assess,' FBI in El Paso Special Agent in Charge John Morales explained.
The number of migrants in ICE detention was at 39,238 at the beginning of February, and two weeks later that figure increased to 41,169 total detainees, according to the latest figures from immigration authorities.
In the first two weeks of February, ICE detained more than 1,800 migrants with criminal convictions or with pending criminal charges against them.
This represents 59 percent of the total number of illegal immigrants taken into ICE custody from early February to the middle of the month, according to data obtained by NBC News.
Meanwhile, the other 41 percent of the 4,422 illegal immigrants brought into ICE custody this month are not criminals.
Trump's stance is that all migrants in the US without documentation are criminals because they illegally entered or illegally remained in the country.
The President has now gone 'nuclear' on the migrant crisis by allowing the military to take control of the 'buffer zone' near the Southern border with Mexico.
The President offered a chilling warning to all migrants, telling them to leave the country on their own or 'never be admitted again to the United States, ever, ever again - you're never coming in'
Trump's ambitious plan would turn the 60-foot-deep buffer zone into a military installation at the border and allow US troops to temporarily hold migrants who cross over into the America.
A defense official told The Washington Post that the migrants would be held until legally detained by civilian law enforcement.
Now, Trump's homeland security team is reportedly set to announce plans to take greater control over the partition in a section in New Mexico.
If the initial plan is termed a success by the administration, officials believe the zone would eventually stretch west to California.
The designation would allow the Pentagon to deploy resources from its massive $800billion budget on the border crackdown.
The military is largely prohibited by federal law from many law enforcement duties by the Posse Comitatus Act.
Trump has gotten around the law during his second term by using Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain migrants and then moving them.
The Pentagon is seeking counsel from the military on whether or not this could cause legal problems.
A legal theory for how this would work is comparing migrants entering the buffer zone to trespassing upon a military base.
'It's very, very careful on that wording. It's not 'detention' because once you go into detention it has the connotations of being detained for arrest. This is holding for civilian law enforcement,' a Defense official said.
