Customs and Border Protection released a video on Monday that showed a 3-year-old girl falling 16 feet from atop a border fence in Arizona.
YumaSector #USBP agents apprehended 49 individuals from Guatemala who illegally crossed an outdated section of 16-foot border wall yesterday. During the incident, a 3-year-old girl fell off the smugglers’ ladder. Agents rendered aid to the child who sustained minor injuries. pic.twitter.com/OHoCYEkmSR
— CBP Arizona (@CBPArizona) January 28, 2019
The child — who was among a group of asylum seekers attempting to mount a fence near the San Luis port of entry — suffered minor injuries when she fell from the barrier, according to CBP’s Yuma, Arizona, sector.
“I don’t know if the mother was with the child,” Jose Garibay, Border Patrol’s Yuma Sector spokesman, told the Arizona Republic.
“But in the video you can see that the child actually falls from almost the top of the border wall and lands on the ground and may or may not have tried to be stopped by the individuals who are in the group.”
The CBP Arizona Twitter account posted the video.
President Trump has called the situation at the border a humanitarian crisis as migrants desperately attempt to make the trek to the US.
Garibay told the newspaper that large groups of mostly Guatemalan migrants have tried to breach the San Luis crossing in recent weeks.
Last month, a 14-year-old girl broke several vertebrae on her neck when she fell from the fence and landed on her back, the paper said.
