Hospital Sees Surge in Migrants With Brain Injuries From Border Wall Falls

The number of injuries sustained by migrants attempting to illegally enter the United States through cities like San Diego have increased heavily in the past five years, according to one physician.

At least 10 migrants were injured after falling from a border wall on Saturday near Border Field State Park in San Diego, one of the most traversed corridors for illegal entrants into the country.

Described by the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department as a “mass casualty” incident, some migrants suffered broken bones and victims were transported in six ambulances to area hospitals. Some uninjured children accompanied those victims.

Dr. Alexander Tenorio, a neurological surgery resident at UC San Diego Health, told local CBS 8 that his hospital’s trauma center has experienced 10 times as many migrants with severe injuries compared to 2019—the same year when the wall was raised to 30 feet.

Between 2016 and 2020, Tenorio said the trauma center treated 12 spinal fractures suffered by migrants scaling the southern border wall. Once the wall was raised from 6-foot and 17-foot barriers to 30 feet, spinal fractures increased to more than 100 over a two-year period.

That increase is accompanied by more brain injuries, including to migrants’ brain blood vessels—some of the most traumatic brain injuries one can experience, sometimes leaving patients unable to speak or walk.

“We’ve definitely seen an increase since the border wall was raised to 30 feet at the end of 2019…Not only are the numbers going up, but the severity of these injuries—it’s much, much worse,” Tenorio said.

UC San Diego Health, one of two main trauma centers that treat these specific injuries, reportedly hinted that there are more migrants than the 400 who were offered medical assistance in 2023.

John Cihomsky, spokesperson for San Diego-based Sharp Memorial Hospital, told Newsweek via email that their health facility has not seen any material increase in border-related injuries. He alluded to the local trauma centers like UC San Diego and Scripps, which are more equipped to deal with migrant-related injuries.

Newsweek reached out to UC San Diego and Scripps via email for comment.

A study published in JAMA in April 2022 found that changes at the southern border enacted by then-President Donald Trump in January 2017, which included 30-foot-high steel barriers along a 406-mile stretch in addition to 49 miles of new barrier, led to increased migrant deaths and trauma center admissions at UC San Diego between 2016 and 2021.

There were 67 documented falls between 2016 and 2018, dramatically increasing to 375 falls between 2019 and 2021—after the taller barrier was constructed.

The impact beyond personal injuries included a financial burden to hospitals like UC San Diego, where costs exceeded $13 million in 2021.

The foreign-born population in San Diego is approximately 344,000, according to data publicized by the city. That represents 27.1 percent of the city’s total population To compare, foreign-born persons account for about 13.7 percent of the total U.S. population.

California Immigrant Policy Center (CIPC) Executive Director Masih Fouladi told Newsweek via email that his organization has opposed the taller barriers since they were first designed and integrated.

“Immigrant rights organizations made it clear from the time that taller, 30-foot border walls were proposed under the Trump administration that these structures would only increase the risk of injury and death to migrants,” Fouladi said. “Subsequent reports by UC San Diego Health and the Mexican government have verified this fear.”

He referred to the uptick in injuries as “the inevitable outcome” of an immigration policy designed with “an inhumane approach.”

“People fleeing danger, violence and trauma should be welcomed with dignity and compassion, not monstrous walls,” he added. “Instead of higher, more dangerous barriers, the federal government should do more to expand the pathways to legal migration into the U.S. and bring more resources to the border to process people seeking asylum more swiftly and humanely.”