There’s an easy answer to people falling from the border wall: don’t climb it. If you try and climb the White House fence and fall and hurt yourself, who’s to blame? Would the NY Times blast Joe Biden for having that evil fence? Or would they call you a bad person for attempting to unlawfully enter the White House grounds?
Border Wall-Related Falls Are Increasing in California
In an effort to deter migrants from illegally crossing into the United States, 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. Jordan 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,” Jordan said. “The falls also shatter their extremities, because of greater impact from falling farther.”
That’s on them. If I go and climb the fence into the residence of Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, a nuclear power plant, a military base, and fall and hurt myself I’d be prosecuted. The NY Times would say I was a fool for doing what I did. If I cut myself on the barbed or razor wire, that’s on me. Those big walls at the border should be saying “stay out.”
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.”
If you blow a stop sign and a car hits you, well, you brought the injuries on yourself.
“The problem is getting worse and worse,” said Dr. Jay Doucet, chief of the trauma unit at UC 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 Jordan.
Is anyone blaming Apple, Samsung, Google, or other smartphone makers for all the people getting hurt taking selfies and videos? Why would we blame a wall, even one that was increased in height from 8-11 feet to 30 feet? It’s a clear sign that says “no. Stay out”.
“This is at our center alone, and we only see severe trauma,” said Alexander Tenorio, a neurosurgeon at UC San Diego Health who has operated on migrants with brain injuries.
“It’s an untold, heartbreaking story of unnecessary human suffering,” he said.
How about we electrify it, so that if they touch it they get a shock? We can use green energy, put a bunch of solar panels up to power it.
If you fall off a wall while illegally scaling it who’s fault is that?
If the wall is owned by the deep pockets of the US government, you are the right color, and you’ve got a really qualified and connected lawyer you could win millions. They’ll just call it reparations.
“A thief is shot in the night. Whose hand held the bow?”
–American Indian Proverb
Clearly, one answer is to make falls from the wall always lethal. Rather than raising the walls and adding concertina wire to the top, make the ground around the walls lethal on which to fall: 12″ long spikes imbedded in concrete would do the trick.
In the same vein of Mr Dana’s morbid joke… With the advances in AI recognition software and hardware, we could and should mount cameras linked to high velocity rifles. Years ago one could hunt deer in Texas from the comfort of your Barcalounger using a joy stick linked to a servo driven rifle and video camera. We have the technology, all we lack is the will to kill foreigners climbing our walls. Why do you think Americans do not accept killing the migrants at the border?
Also, we might wonder why all these migrants are fleeing Mexico and the Central/South American nations. Mr Teach posits it’s because people are willing trek 1000 miles, risking death every step along the way, to get our luxurious “free stuff”, tents, water, police, lawyers, bus rides, food. Interestingly, millions have fled the poverty and oppression of Venezuela to Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile as well as to Spain and the Caribbean. Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras have broken down politically and socially, largely because of the illicit drug trade where the final consumer is the US. Drug traffic to the US passes from Colombia and Peru through Central America, enriching and empowering these gangs and deepening corruption in those “nations”. Hunter Biden’s coke habit caused it all!!
Good-then let them enter legally. What a concept!
Don’t want to fall? Then don’t climb the wall.
…and?
Given that the appropriate term is “invaders,” I’m not seeing a problem here.