Mass Casualty Incident at US-Mexico Border

At least 10 migrants were injured after falling from a border wall in California on Saturday.

The San Diego Fire-Rescue Department declared a "mass casualty" incident after Border Patrol agents sought help for those injured near Border Field State Park, local media reported.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection "notified us that eight patients had fallen from the border fence," a spokesperson for SD Fire-Rescue told Newsweek.

"Our crews responded and triaged eleven patients. Ten patients were transported to local hospitals" with mild to moderate injuries, with the most serious being a broken leg, the spokesperson said. Their ages range from 18 to mid-40s.

In some cases, children who were not injured accompanied their parents in the ambulances.

Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee's U.S./Mexico Border Program, said migrants are regularly injured after scaling the wall to enter the U.S. San Diego is one of the busiest corridors for illegal crossings.

"We see cases on a daily basis of people that are injured from having fallen or burned their hands using the ropes to come down the border wall," he told CBS 8.

Rios said he was at the wall before the incident happened and saw more than 100 people in the area.

"I asked how they crossed, and they said by scaling the border wall," he said. Rios believes that rainy weather made the wall slippery, leading to more people falling.

The American Friends Service Committee has been contacted for further comment via its website.

It comes after an anti-climbing feature was added to new sections of the barrier being built at Friendship Park between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. The metal rooftop-type segments are a prototype and will be added to the other parts of the wall if they successfully prevent migrants from scaling the wall, reports state.

Rios said last month that the feature could be deadly.

"We continue to see an increase in people that are falling from the border wall and seeking medical treatment," he said. "In this case, if they fall onto the Mexican side then we won't have an accounting for how dangerous this new feature might be."

Immigration has emerged as a top issue in the 2024 presidential race, widely expected to be a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

A majority (84 percent) of Americans see illegal immigration as a "serious" or "very serious" issue for the country, according to a recent Monmouth University poll.

The survey also found that more than half of Americans (53 percent) support the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, while 46 percent are opposed to it.

Update 3/4/24, 5 a.m. ET: This article has been updated to add additional information.

Update 3/5/24, 5:30 a.m. ET: This article has been updated to add comment from the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.