Border Wall-Related Falls Are Increasing in California

It’s Monday. More migrants are injuring themselves as they try to cross the southern border in California. Plus, an L.A. Rams training complex could help transform urban sprawl.

In an effort to deter migrants from illegally crossing into the country, the federal government has in recent years been erecting walls that are taller and harder to scale along the border with Mexico.

That fortification has had big consequences, especially in California: More migrants are having devastating and costly falls.

My colleague Miriam Jordan was reporting at the border this year when she noticed an unusual number of migrants in wheelchairs, bandages and casts at shelters. Miriam learned that while there was no comprehensive accounting of wall-related injuries and deaths, doctors at U.S. hospitals along the border have noticed a definite increase.

“Desperate people try to jump over, and they suffer much more severe traumatic injuries to the head,” Miriam told me. “The falls also shatter their extremities, because of greater impact from falling farther.”

Problems continue even after they receive treatment. “Many migrants do not receive the follow-up care that they need after being released from the hospital,” she said, “and they may never regain the ability to work at physically arduous jobs, which they came to America to do, or lead a normal life.”

You can read Miriam’s full article here.

During his presidency, Donald J. Trump ordered the construction in California of a 30-foot-tall steel barrier to replace more than 400 miles of fencing that ranged in height from eight to 17 feet. The project was completed in 2019, and since then, the number of patients admitted to the trauma center at U.C. San Diego Health because of falls related to the wall has increased sevenfold. The hospital has recorded 23 deaths from such falls since 2019; there were none in the four previous years.

“The problem is getting worse and worse,” said Dr. Jay Doucet, chief of the trauma unit at U.C. San Diego Health, which is about 15 miles from the Tijuana-San Ysidro border crossing. “The hospital system is taking a big hit,” he told Miriam.

Last year, U.C. San Diego Health converted a postpartum unit into a ward for border-wall casualties. The sheer number has affected care for local people, too; waiting time for spinal procedures at the hospital has risen to nearly two weeks, from three days.

“This is at our center alone, and we only see severe trauma,” said Alexander Tenorio, a neurosurgeon at U.C. San Diego who has operated on migrants with brain injuries.

“It’s an untold, heartbreaking story of unnecessary human suffering,” he said.

Where we’re traveling

Today’s tip comes from Lin Daniels, who recommends Moss Landing, a community and state beach in Monterey County:

“You drive there on scenic Highway 1 toward Monterey. The entrance is a road winding down through an estuary, a wetland laden with an abundance of shorebirds. The road is nestled between the dunes and a small bay, where sea otter and seals take up residence year-round. You can rent a kayak there to respectfully paddle with them, or take time to join a captain who will take you on a very small boat through the slough and take in the magic. Mother otters nurse their babies there, and over 100 shore and migrating birds are seen there daily. We always finish our day of nature at its best with a freshly caught meal at the fish shack nestled on its shore. When the sun sets over the Pacific, we leave sated and warm, thankful that we live in California.”

Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to [email protected]. We’ll be sharing more in upcoming editions of the newsletter.

Tell us

Are you seeing fall colors in your part of California? Send us your best photos at [email protected]. Please include your full name and the city in which you live.

And before you go, some good news

After nearly eight years of negotiations and painstaking work, the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens in San Marino has opened the newest addition to its Japanese Garden: a 300-year-old shōya house that once anchored a farming community in Marugame, Japan.

Donated to the museum by a Los Angeles couple, Akira and Yohko Yokoi, whose family has owned it for centuries, the house tells the story not only of the Yokoi family but of an interesting chapter in Japan’s history.

The house was built around 1700, after the war that united Japan’s disparate factions under the Tokugawa shogunate government. The house was constructed for the Yokoi family, and doubled as a community hub for the surrounding farming village (given the family’s position in the new government), with humble spaces for farmers to store their crops and more ornate rooms for high-ranking officials.

The Huntington acquired the house a few years ago with the hope of creating an immersive historical exhibit, and soon began the lengthy process of deconstructing and meticulously rebuilding the house, stone by stone, on the California museum’s property. A garden and surrounding plot of traditional Japanese crops were planted to complete the exhibit, which opened to the public in October.

Read more about the history of the house and the ambitious project to relocate it.