Thirty-three people drowned trying to cross the U.S. border in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego, a staggering increase from the previous year, after the Trump administration nearly doubled the height of the wall along the southern border. .
According to one study, the number of drownings increased by 3,200% from 2020 to 2023 compared to 2016 to 2019. At this time, he was the only one who drowned. study It was released this week. The Trump administration raised the fence around San Diego from 17 feet to 30 feet by 2019.
The expansion will have significant impacts and a high human toll: in addition to drownings, a 2022 study found an “unprecedented” increase in border wall falls and deaths. Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to “secure” the U.S. border (while routinely demonizing immigrants), and work on the border wall continues under the Biden administration. .
Last year, doctors in San Diego treated more than 400 patients seriously injured by the border wall, a significant increase from 2022. Almost all of the injuries were from people falling from the wall on the U.S. side of the border.
The authors of a study published this week in the Jama journal suspect that increased risks associated with the border wall may have encouraged people to enter the United States by water, resulting in more deaths. Ta.
They found a significant increase in deaths in San Diego, where the wall extends beyond the sands of Imperial Beach to the ocean, a 30% increase in canal drownings, and a 133% increase in all other body deaths. did. water. There was little change in the number of drownings along the Rio Grande, where there is little wall.
Authors Anna Lucier, a medical student at the University of California, San Diego, and Peter Lindholm, a professor at the University of California, began researching the issue after Lucier noticed a lack of information about drownings among people attempting to cross the border. It started. They were investigating the occupational health of lifeguards and other workers.
“The lifeguards showed us a presentation about migrant rescues they are conducting due to potential human smuggling.” Lucier said a statement from the University of California, San Diego. “Their stories weren’t in the news, and the numbers seemed strange.”
Lucier looked for data on drownings in government datasets, but it wasn’t readily available and was missing key information. She and Lindholm eventually collected data from the Missing Migrants Project, including dates and coordinates of drownings and the number of deaths.
Although the authors plan to expand their study to better understand the increase in deaths, Lindholm said it is unlikely that the increase in deaths is due solely to increased immigration.
“If you look at the numbers, you’ll see it’s about the same on the Rio Grande. It’s a little more in the ditches and canals, but not particularly high,” he said. “We don’t have absolute data on migration numbers, but if the number of drownings were related to migration rates, we would probably see similar increases in all locations.”
