Here’s one from the “can’t-win-for-losing” department.
The New York Times today published an article titled, “Border Wall Falls Leave Migrants With Devastating — and Costly — Injuries.” That’s right. The barrier that at places separates the countries of Mexico and the United States has become a source of what the Times calls “cracked skulls, shattered spines, and bones poking out of arms and legs”: all injuries suffered by lawless migrants intent on getting into the U.S. by any means necessary.
In this case, the “necessary” means is climbing a border wall that can vary in height between eight and 30 feet. Some make it over; others do not. Those who don’t are apt to suffer the injuries such as those noted above, injuries that call for their immediate transfer to trauma centers in cities along the border that are paying through the nose for their treatment. For example, San Diego’s two trauma centers spent $72 million from 2020 to June 2022, the latest period for which figures are available.
The Times notes that, while former President Donald Trump emphasized the need for fortifying and completing the barrier, its modern version was actually begun by President Clinton in the 1990s and has been enhanced by every administration since, including that of Joe Biden, who recently authorized an expansion of the barriers in South Texas.
The article cites the case of one Rosmarie Cepeda, 40, of Venezuela. After reaching Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, in early May Cependa grew impatient waiting for a slot in the U.S. government’s mobile app and “decided to take her chances.” Those chances were not good.
On her way down in the darkness, Ms. Cepeda plummeted to the ground, shattering her lower left leg and foot. She was taken to a hospital in El Paso and underwent multiple surgeries to realign and fix her bones. She was in a wheelchair for months.
The cost, passed on as usual to the rest of us, is not given, but you can imagine.
If any criminal is injured performing criminal acts, you can bet that a host of hungry lawyers are somewhere nearby. That was true in a case reported on in August by a San Diego TV station. In January 2022, one Joel Reyes Muñoz, 42, of Mexico, was making a third attempt to sneak into the United States from Tijuana. It was to be his last. Muñoz fell from the top of the 30-foot wall and died shortly thereafter.
His widow has now filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the CBP claiming that her husband would have survived if US officials had been more diligent in treating his injuries. A San Diego lawyer claimed that although “it’s not a crime to have [the wall] this height, it’s cruelty . . . when it’s inevitable that someone is going to fall or be injured it’s the obligation of this country to give enough life-saving medical care.”
Such is the lot of the modern “super-power” that is the United States, which has maneuvered itself into a lose-lose position where it is at the mercy of international criminals and homegrown (or naturalized) lawyers. You cannot make this stuff up.