EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) — Smugglers got a little creative when they hid migrants inside giant bales of hay, but it was wasn’t enough to thwart authorities.

The discovery happened on Interstate 10 some 275 miles north of the border in the Texas town of Flatonia.

The sheriff of Fayette County told Nexstar’s KWKT that one of his deputies stopped a pickup pulling a loaded hay trailer on about 90 miles east of San Antonio. He said a close inspection revealed that the bales had been “meticulously altered and hollowed out to create concealed compartments.”

The hollowed-out bales were reinforced with chicken wire and resembled small huts.

Deputies found several migrants inside the hay bales and arrested two alleged coordinators while the driver, 44-year-old Delbert Flanders of Kansas, had to be taken to a hospital for reasons unknown.

This week on Border Report Live, we examine this an another unique smuggling operation that involved cross-border freight trains, which comes as the U.S. and Mexico attempt to expand international trade using said trains. Plus, convictions are piling up in Far West Texas, where the migrants have been trespassing onto a new National Defense Area that runs along the border wall.

Related reporting:

• Railroad employee charged with smuggling migrants on cargo trains
• 60 convicted of trespassing on new border military zone
• Trains full of freight could soon cross into the US from Tijuana
• Altered hay bales used in a human smuggling attempt
• Stench in the Tijuana river valley drives out long-time resident

Join the award-winning Border Report team every Thursday at 3 p.m. CT at borderreport.com for a weekly, live, in-depth discussion about people living, working and migrating along the U.S.-Mexico border.

You can also watch past episodes of the Border Report Live, highlighting not only immigration and border security, but cartel violence in Mexico and the countries’ ongoing water dispute on the border.

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