Border wall falls leave migrants with devastating and costly injuries, NYT reports

The New York Times reported on Tuesday a significant rise in the number of migrants experiencing debilitating injuries while attempting to scale the U.S. southern border wall in their illegal entry efforts.

Since the completion of the project to replace the previous 8 to 17 feet fencing with a 30-foot-tall steel bollard barrier along the California border in 2019, there has been a sevenfold increase in the number of individuals admitted to the trauma center at U.C. San Diego Health who fell from the border wall, reaching a total of 311 cases last year.

The financial burden of providing care for migrants at San Diego’s two trauma centers, U.C. San Diego Health and Scripps Mercy Hospital, has surged from $11 million between 2016 and 2019 to $72 million from 2020 to June 2022, the most recent available data.

Typically lacking insurance, the injured migrants often require multiple intricate surgeries and prolonged inpatient care. Moreover, the increased demand for treating severely injured migrants has impacted healthcare services for the local population, leading to longer wait times, such as a rise in the wait time for spinal procedures from three days to nearly two weeks in one example.

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