A mother was impaled in front of her young children while trying to climb over the border fence near the San Ysidro, California Port of Entry.
On Friday, San Diego Sector Border Patrol agents found a 26-year-old Guatemalan woman who had fallen from the fence after trying to enter the country with her children, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a news release.
After falling from the fence, the woman landed on a reinforcing bar, which pierced through her side and buttocks.
The San Diego Union-Tribunereported that the Guatemalan woman climbed the fence east of the port of entry, a site where construction workers have been trying to replace old fencing with a new barrier.
The young mother was attended to by Border Patrol agents and EMS before being rushed to a nearby hospital.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the woman is in stable condition and being treated for non-life threatening injuries.
Her children, a three-year-old and a five-year-old, were also taken to the hospital for evaluation to see if they fell and were injured but were later released into Border Patrol custody. It is not clear at this time if the woman was carrying the children when she fell or if she got them down safely.
The news of the woman’s injury comes in the wake of the U.S. Customs and Border officers use of tear gas to deter migrants attempting to reach the U.S. on Sunday before President Donald Trump threatened to close the border altogether.
A group of migrants first faced Mexican police near the San Ysidro border crossing, The New York Times reported. Some migrants who evaded Mexican police were met by U.S. officials who used tear gas.
U.S. officials also closed a border crossing near San Diego for a few hours on Sunday.
Children were among the migrants who faced tear gas, CNN reported.
“We ran, but when you run the gas asphyxiates you more,” 23-year-old Honduran Ana Zuniga, who had her 3-year-old daughter Valery in her arms, said to the Associated Press.
On Monday morning, Trump tweeted that some of the migrants are “stone cold criminals” and that he would not be opposed to closing the border altogether.
“Mexico should move the flag waving Migrants, many of whom are stone cold criminals, back to their countries,” Trump wrote. “Do it by plane, do it by bus, do it anyway you want, but they are NOT coming into the U.S.A. We will close the Border permanently if need be. Congress, fund the WALL!”
