Drownings at US-Mexico border up 3,200% since Trump raised wall – report

Thirty-three people attempting to cross the US border drowned in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego after the Trump administration nearly doubled the height of the walls along the southern border, a staggering increase from previous years.

The number of drownings rose by 3,200% from 2020 to 2023, compared to 2016 to 2019, when just one person drowned, according to a study published this week. By 2019 the Trump administration had elevated the barriers around San Diego from 17ft to 30ft.

The expansion has had significant impacts and a major human toll – in addition to the drowning deaths, a 2022 study found an “unprecedented” increase in border wall falls and deaths. Donald Trump campaigned on the promise of “securing” America’s borders (while routinely demonizing immigrants), and work on the border barrier has continued under the Biden administration.

Last year, doctors in San Diego saw more than 400 patients who had been seriously injured at the border wall, a significant increase from 2022. Nearly all of the injuries occurred from people falling off the wall onto the US side of the border.

The authors of the study published in the Jama journal this week suspected that the increased risks associated with the border barrier may have encouraged people to try to enter the US by water, which resulted in more deaths.

They found the significant rise in deaths in San Diego, where the wall stretches across the sand into the water at Imperial Beach, as well as a 30% rise in drowning deaths in canals, and a 133% increase in deaths in all other bodies of water. Drownings along the Rio Grande, where there is largely no wall, remained almost unchanged.

The authors, Anna Lussier, a medical student at the University of California at San Diego,