This decrease in the number of people CBP pays for comes amid record increases in both the number of apprehensions along the southern border and the number of migrants hospitalized after falling from the 30-foot-tall border wall in the San Diego region.
Nobody tracks the whereabouts of migrants that CBP decided not to keep in custody at the hospital, even though they were caught crossing the border illegally. The spokesperson declined to answer any follow up questions – including why the agency is not keeping patients in custody as often as it did in prior years.“You can see why,” he said. “I mean, if you see the average charge, it’s very expensive. For their budget, it’s great if they just get rid of the patient and leave the patient in the hospital.”
“To me, for example, it was pretty impactful that during the first 12 days of August, eight Mexican nationals died trying to cross the border in an undocumented way,” he said."Eight people in 12 days. And we did not see any story in the media.” “Death has always been part of the calculus,” said Pedro Rios, an activist with San Diego-based American Friends Service Committee. “There is the expectation that people would fall, that they would be injured and that they would die.”