‘These dangers are not important considerations to smugglers, who place an emphasis on profits over safety…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents rescued three illegal immigrants stuck on top of San Diego’s new 30-foot border wall.
The immigrants were “in a precarious situation” Sunday night, according to immigration officials, and agents found them trying to get down from the border wall to enter the U.S. illegally.
“A man and two women, under the cover of dense fog, tried to enter the U.S. illegally by climbing San Diego Sector’s new 30-foot, steel bollard wall,” USCBP said in a press release, when “the trio became stuck at the top of the wet, slippery wall after smugglers abandoned them.”
San Diego’s Fire–Rescue Department assisted border officials with the rescue, using a ladder to bring the illegal immigrants safely to the ground.
“These three were very fortunate to not have fallen from the top of the wall which could have resulted in serious injury or death. These dangers are not important considerations to smugglers, who place an emphasis on profits over safety,” said San Diego Sector’s Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke.
This is just one of thousands of rescues Border Patrol agents conduct every year. In the fiscal year 2019, agents participated in nearly 5,000 rescues along the border and escorted about 25,000 migrants to hospitals for medical attention, according to the USCBP.
“Although we’ve made great progress, I am here today to respectfully remind this committee and the American people that there continues to be a humanitarian crisis, and importantly, a national security crisis.
In fiscal year 2019, CBP’s enforcement actions exceeded 1.1 million nationwide—an increase of 68% over the previous year,” Mark Morgan, the acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said in his testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee last year. “They’re being pulled into the United States by the loopholes in our current legal framework.”