Flexible fractures, punctured organs and a miscarriage: Dr. Jay Doucet has seen the severity of his patients increase in tandem with the height of the US border wall, with thousands of migrants who risk their lives to evade the blockade imposed by the so-called Title 42.
“You And I wouldn’t jump a 30-foot wall, but they would, it’s desperate,” says Doucet, chief of trauma at the University of California Hospital, San Diego, who has seen the number increase. of injuries and deaths at the same height as the border wall.
A study by Doucet and colleagues published in April counts 67 patients in San Diego between 2016 and 2018 linked to the wall. But since 2019, when several sections were raised from 5.4 to 9.1 meters on the orders of former President Donald Trump, 375 have been hospitalized, and 16 have died. We love to come back”-
“We have clear empirical evidence that these higher walls do not stop or divert migratory flows, but they do. they cause more and more serious injuries”, says Carlos González Gutiérrez, Mexican consul in San Diego, who has accompanied the hospitalization of hundreds of Mexicans in the Californian city.< /p>
The wall, which for the most part is a fence of very thick bars, impossible to hold with your hands, borders the country to the south through hills and dunes, even entering the waters of the Pacific. on Imperial Beach.
If it is imposing from afar, it seems unapproachable up close.
“I don’t know. how I went up, everything was very fast, when I saw, I was already on the other side”, M., an immigrant who left Colombia with her family who was under threat. Her daughter, however, fractured & oacute; the ankle and remained hospitalized for several weeks.
Seeking asylum, the family did not turn up. He came before the authorities for fear that his case would be dismissed under Title 42, the health policy that the United States implemented under Title 42. based on an 1893 law, allowing the immediate expulsion of anyone without a visa, including asylum seekers, at the border during the pandemic. The wall scared her, but it didn’t stop her: “We couldn’t go back.”
“During the pandemic, many asylum seekers are desperate with no way to present themselves legally. This leads them to follow dangerous routes through the desert, the mountains or the ocean”, says Pedro Ríos, of the NGO Comité of Service of the Friends of the United States.
Washington announced He said he would annul the measure on May 23, but with the opposition of several governors, justice has the final word.
“Title 42 has created enormous human suffering,” explains Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior policy adviser for the nonprofit American Council for Migration. “2021 and 2022 will be the deadliest years for people crossing the border.”
Authorities recorded 557 deaths on the southwestern border of the United States in 2021, more than double the 283 deaths in 2018, before Title 42 and the wall went up.
" “The numbers continue to rise,” says Dr. Doucet, who now has seven patients tied to the wall, one in critical condition with multiple fractures and injuries to his colon and lungs.
– “Desperate”-
Title 42, used more than 1.8 million times, provides for immediate expulsion without legal consequences, so immigrants can try to cross an infinite number of times.
The authorities Americans intercepted 1.73 million people in fiscal year 2021 (October to September), more than half under Title 42. This record could be broken in 2022, which already adds up to 1.2 million.
“Many of the expulsions are the same person crossing several times”, clarifies Reichlin-Melnick, who rules out the lack of resources or health reasons to maintain the measure.
“More than 20,000 Ukrainians were admitted at San Diego and other borders in two months,” says Reichlin-Melnick.
“This shows that Title 42 is not about health. There is no reason to admit thousands of Ukrainians and block Nicaraguans, Venezuelans or Haitians from seeking asylum”.
“Part of the problem is that we believed that simple solutions like a wall they would make the problem go away, but they made it worse,” says Dr. Doucet, who has treated pregnant women and the elderly after jumping 30 feet into the void.
Pause for a few seconds when hearing a helicopter that according to his experience may be bringing another patient from the wall. Dr. Doucet has no doubt that, if expelled, many will try again. “People don’t understand how desperate they are to come to America for a better life.”