A public health crisis in border towns
Imagine clutching to a 30-foot wall, knowing you had to drop. Nothing is below your feed but concrete covered in sand. You're physically exhausted and alone. The man you paid to get you to safety is yelling at you to drop at this moment. So you do.
The impact of such falls from migrants attempting to climb towering border barriers is becoming a public health crisis: County hospitals in El Paso, Texas, and San Diego are receiving patients with border wall fall-related trauma at a rate of one per day in 2023, according to their chief trauma surgeons.
👋 Nicole Fallert here and welcome to Your Week, our newsletter exclusively for Paste BN subscribers (that's you!). This week, we talk with Paste BN reporter Lauren Villagran about her exclusive interviews with survivors of terrifying falls from barrier walls — and what their stories mean for public health. The story is part of an exclusive series by El Paso Times and Paste BN about migrant deaths, what causes them and what they mean for border policy.
But first, don't miss these stories made possible by your Paste BN subscription (and keep scrolling for more subscriber-exclusive content!):
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The impact of a fall on health care systems
Let's start with some context: The Biden administration is building a new barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border despite President Joe Biden’s promise as a candidate not to add to a controversial border wall that has long been a signature of his predecessor, Donald Trump.
As the government invests in these barriers, Lauren Villagran asked: what is the impact on local border town communities and migrants?
She reached out to Dr. Susan McLean, surgical ICU medical director at University Medical Center in El Paso, who provided her with two full years of emergency room data on border wall falls. These incidents carry "a mortality rate that is higher than COVID-19 in the general population," McClean said.
And there aren't enough doctors in border town emergency rooms to deal with the strain these falls are putting on local health care systems, medical providers told Villagran.
But why are people scaling these towering barriers in the first place?
Villagran traveled to a shelter for migrants recovering from falls. She spoke with women from Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador. Speaking with Villagran in Spanish and K'iche, a Mayan language via translator, they told her similar accounts of why they attempted the climb: Smugglers pitch passage to America to people who are desperate. They paid for the chance, not knowing the danger they would be facing. It's important to remember these women had very little power in the decision to climb, Villagran said.
"Even though they're paying $10,000," she said, "$10,000 doesn't buy them the right to say 'I don't want to go here.'"
The women Villagran spoke with had injuries on their hands because the wall is made of rough, rusted steel that ripped through their skin as they clung to the wall. Some of their injuries involve shattered bones that could take years to recover from, while physical therapy is far from accessible.
Covering the story as a public health issue was important to Villagran because it removed politics from the conversation of the border and focused on the human impact: "Whatever political party a doctor may belong to, they are confronted with treating the patients at the hospital. Hundreds of people are landing in border ERs with extremely complicated cases from broken bones to paralysis to death."
Villagran emphasized how moved she was to see the height of the wall in person to put these falls into context: "(These migrants) have been on a horrific journey, walking for days, held in the hands of smugglers. They haven't had good nutrition and upon arriving at the fence at night, it's cold. Women said their palms were sweating as they climbed. They got scared. When you fall it's not soft."
Thank you
Reading Lauren's report left me in tears. I feel absolutely thankful for her work bringing these falls to light and (hopefully) to the attention of those who can make a difference. Your support for journalism like this matters.
Thank you,
Nicole Fallert