U.S. Marines add concertina wire to U.S.-Mexico border walls on March 12, 2025, in San Diego. The wire is meant to deter people from crossing the border walls and to give border patrol agents more time to respond. (Ana Ramirez/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
SAN DIEGO (Tribune News Service) — The number of people seriously hurt falling off the U.S.-Mexico border wall in San Diego County has dropped sharply since the Trump administration intensified security measures, according to the two trauma hospitals that treat those injuries.
University of California, San Diego Health said Wednesday it has treated 25 individuals for such falls so far this year. Of those, 22 occurred in January, and just two in February and one in March. A month-by-month comparative tally for 2024 was not immediately available.
Scripps Health, which shares border trauma duties, reported treating 10 border fall cases in January and zero in February, compared to 32 and 42 for the same months in 2024. Data was not yet available for March.
Border falls had increased sharply after the Trump administration increased the height of the wall to 30 feet during the president’s first term.
A second term brought an immediate declaration of a national border emergency on Jan. 22, as the new administration deployed military units into the area and its threat of tariffs triggered a similar posture from the Mexican National Guard.
Wall climbing has not stopped entirely. Just Tuesday, one person died and another was injured after falling from the wall west of the San Ysidro Point of Entry, near Clearwater Way and Dairy Mart Road.
Both health organizations saw significant increases in border wall-related trauma cases last year.
Scripps recorded 524 falls in 2024, compared with 189 in 2023 and 239 in 2022. UC San Diego Health, whose researchers first published an academic paper on a significant increase in severe trauma injuries associated with falls from the 30-foot wall in 2022, saw a 63% increase in trauma cases over an 18-month period from January 2023 to June 2024, with 749 inpatient and 78 outpatient treatments handled during that span.
UC San Diego estimated that it provided about $24 million in uncompensated care during those 18 months.
The sudden decrease tracks with reports of significant drops in migrant asylum-seekers congregating near the border. U.S. Border Patrol statistics show a massive decrease in attempted crossings within its San Diego Sector. In February, the Border Patrol reported 1,650 encounters, compared with 31,562 in February 2024.
Pedro Rios, director of the U.S.-Mexico Border Program run by American Friends Service Committee, a nonprofit that aids those trapped between San Diego’s parallel border walls, said it makes sense that a larger military presence would deter climbing attempts, which are often orchestrated by human smuggling cartels operating in Mexico.
Fewer falls, he said, is a good thing given the injuries that migrants have suffered. However, he added that preventing climbs does not eliminate the demand to find a way into the United States by people from all over the world who seek to claim asylum.
“The number of maritime crossings has increased, and it seems that there are still people that are crossing through much more remote areas where they don’t necessarily have a lot of infrastructure to depend on when they cross,” Rios said.
”It’s a good thing, I think, that people are not climbing over the border wall just because the possibility of falling and getting injured or dying is great,” he said. “However, it’s a bad thing when people don’t have a viable way of safely presenting themselves for an asylum claim.”
Told of the drop in hospital trauma admissions, County Supervisor and congressional candidate Jim Desmond — who has long called for stronger federal enforcement on the border — said: “This proves the president always had the power to secure the border — no new bill was ever needed. I’m glad our border is finally safer for our entire community.”
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