friday, march 13 , 2020. the washington post eZ M2 A
BY NICK MIROFFA pregnant 19-year-old’s fatal
fall while trying to climb over a
border fence outside Clint, Te x.,
on Saturday is the latest in a
string of recent accidents and
injuries that reflect migrants’ in-
creasingly desperate attempts to
enter the United States, authori-
ties said Thursday.
The woman, miriam Estefany
Girón Luna, of Guatemala, fell
backward from the top of an
18-foot-high span of steel mesh
fencing while trying to cross with
the child’s father, according to a
statement from Guatemala’s for-
eign ministry. Girón Luna, who
was 30 weeks pregnant, died
from her injuries Tuesday, and
doctors were not able to save the
child, the statement said.
Te kandi Paniagua, a Guatema-
lan consular official based in Te x-
as, said the fact that the couple
was attempting to sneak into the
United States by climbing the
fence was an indication of shift-
ing migration dynamics at the
border. A year ago, during the
height of the family migration
surge, the couple probably would
have tried to turn themselves in to
seek asylum, he said. But an array
of new restrictions imposed by
the Trump administration is driv-
ing border-crossers to take more
risks, migrant advocates say.
Since october, at least five oth-
er Guatemalans have suffered
broken bones and other serious
injuries after falling from the
border wall, Paniagua said. Au-
thorities also have intercepted
seven tractor trailers with mi-
grants hiding inside since Janu-
ary, h e said, after recording just 12
such incidents in all of 2019.
“This is a very worrisome
trend,” he said. “People are taking
more and more risks, and they’re
losing their lives.”
During the 2019 fiscal year, U.S.
authorities took into custody
more than 470,000 migrants who
arrived as part of a family group
amid a record influx of Central
Americans claiming a fear of per-
secution in their home countries.
The Trump administration has
responded with measures that
have all but closed the southern
border to asylum seekers, while
sending at least 60,000 to mexico
to wait outside U.S. territory
while their cases are processed.
Those measures have led to a
75 percent drop in border deten-
tions since may, U.S. authorities
say, even as the latest figures
show a slight uptick in the num-
ber of single mexican adults and
unaccompanied minors attempt-
ing to cross.
With the addition of taller and
more formidable barriers along
the border, including more than
135 miles of new 30-foot-tall bol-
lard fencing the Trump adminis-
tration has installed, smuggling
organizations have been using
improvised ladders to take mi-
grants over the top.
The tactic requires migrants to
cling to the top of the structure,
then climb a ladder down the
other side or slide down by wrap-
ping their arms and legs around
the steel. The move requires a
significant degree of athleticism.
Girón Luna was a social worker
and beauty pageant winner in her
hometown in Guatemala’s Quet-
zaltenango department, accord-
ing to Paniagua and social mediaposts from friends mourning her
death. Her friends said she made
the journey to the border to sup-
port her family financially.
Girón Luna slipped while try-
ing to descend from the top of the
barrier, Paniagua said, landing on
her back. The teen’s partner, Dil-
ver Israel Díaz García, 26, carried
her away from the scene to seek
help and encountered U.S. Border
Patrol agents, who radioed for an
ambulance.
Doctors in El Paso were unsuc-
cessful in trying to deliver the
child via Caesarean section, and
Girón Luna underwent multiple
surgeries before dying, Paniagua
said. Díaz García remains in U.S.
Border Patrol custody, where he
faces deportation.
In a conference call with re-
porters Thursday, U.S. Customs
and Border Protection acting
commissioner mark morgan de-
scribed Girón Luna’s fatal fall in
detail, calling it “an example of
the truth” of what’s occurring at
the border.
“The smugglers quickly left
them alone, fading off in the
darkness, leaving them to make
the final legs of the journey by
themselves,” he said. “A s they at-
tempted to climb the wall, the
husband could do nothing but
watch as he saw his pregnant wife
fall to the ground.”
“This is absolutely tragic,” mor-
gan said. “But what is also part of
the tragedy is what’s preventable.
Do not listen to the smugglers.
They do not care about you. They
will abuse you, and they will leave
you behind to die. That is the
truth. Those are the facts.”
CBP officials have not released
data indicating how many inju-
ries there have been along the
barrier in recent months. Two
Guatemalan teens suffered signif-
icant injuries after falling from an
18-foot span of fencing in Arizona
in 2018, an incident recorded by
CBP video cameras.
[email protected]A sign of migrants’ desperation
in fatal fall from border wall
Carolyn Van houten/the Washington Posta section of the border wall in Texas. New restrictions imposed by the Trump administration have
prompted border-crossers to take more risks, according to a Guatemalan consular official.
“This is a very
worrisome trend.
People are taking
more and more risks,
and they’re losing
their lives.”
Tekandi Paniagua, a guatemalan
consular official based in texason Jan. 3, the United States
launched a drone strike near
Baghdad International Airport
th at killed Qasem Soleimani, who
commanded the e lite Q uds force.
That spawned concerns that
Iran might retaliate with a larger
attack i n the region.
on Jan. 8, Iran launched ballis-
tic m issiles at t wo m ilitary bases in
Iraq. No U.S. or Iraqi troops were
killed, but the Pentagon reported
that more than 100 service mem-
bers suffered c oncussive injuries.
rockets have been fired a t bases
in Iraq since then, but no Ameri-
cans had been killed.
As the United States, Iran and
much of the world struggled with
the c oronavirus and the e conomic
and social upheaval from the
spreading health crisis, initial re-
action to the new U.S. strikes was
muted. Unlike the December at-
tacks and response, which
prompted immediate presidential
tweets, Trump made no initial
public comment.
Congress was also l argely silent.
The December exchanges — fol-
lowed by the killing of Soleimani
and Iranian retaliation — pro-
voked b ipartisan criticism that l ed
this week to passage of a measure
to limit the president’s authority
to launch military operations
against Iran.
Trump has threatened to veto
the b ill.
[email protected]
[email protected]Mustafa salim in Baghdad and Karen
Deyoung in Washington contributed to
this report.The wounded included U.S., Brit-
ish and Polish service members, as
well as contractors, he said.
The Pentagon was withholding
the names of the Americans killed
until f amilies were n otified.
The British ministry o f Defense
identified its service member
killed as Lance Cpl. Brodie Gillon,- S he was a reservist and c ombat
medical technician with the Scot-
tish and North Irish Yeomanry
and deployed with the Irish
Guards B attle G roup, the ministry
said.
The rocket a ttack and U.S. r etal-
iation mark the latest rounds in a
proxy w ar with Iran that s tretches
back years and e scalated a mid t he
Trump administration’s “maxi-
mum pressure” campaign, in
which crippling sanctions have
been placed on Iran in an attempt
to get it to negotiate a new nuclear
agreement. Trump withdrew the
United States from an obama-era
pact that had lifted U.S. and inter-
national sanctions on Iran in ex-
change for limits on its nuclear
program.
on Dec. 27, a similar rocket
attack on a base outside the city of
Kirkuk killed a U.S. interpreter,
Nawres Hamid. Two days later,
U.S. forces launched airstrikes on
five sites in Iraq and Syria affiliat-
ed with Kataib Hezbollah, which
U.S. officials have said receives
support f rom Iran’s Q uds force.
militia members and support-
ers responded by storming en-
trances to the U.S. Embassy in
Baghdad on Dec. 3 1, chanting
“death to America” and setting
fires. They e ventually withdrew.
United States of hitting militia
and Iraqi army headquarters, as
well as a civilian airport. In a
statement early friday, it said t hat
further strikes could prompt retal-
iation involving a n “eye f or an eye.”
The group did not elaborate on
what that might be, and it was not
immediately possible to confirm
the U.S. statements that the strikes
had t argeted only militia facilities,
or the militia claim that a civilian-
related l ocation had been struck.
U.S. defense officials said Irani-
an-backed militia groups carried
out the attack Wednesday on
Camp Ta ji, an Iraqi base north of
Baghdad that Iraqi and coalition
forces s hare.
Army Gen. mark A. milley, the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, told reporters at the Penta-
gon on Thursday morning that
defense officials had “pretty good
confidence” who launched the
rockets, citing the capture of a
truck by Iraqi security forces on
the n orthern outskirts o f Baghdad
that they said was used in the
attack. Iraqi officials released pho-
tos of the truck, a flatbed with
launchers rigged to it in makeshift
fashion.
“You don’t get to shoot at our
bases and kill and wound Ameri-
cans and get away with it,” Esper
told reporters.
milley said that about 30 rock-
ets were fired at Taji. Twelve to 18
rockets landed on the base,
wounding 14 people, including
five seriously, and causing struc-
tural damage, the general said.
Iraq from a
U.S. strikes follow deadly attack in Iraq
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