Authorities are investigating the cause of death this week of a Mexican woman whose leg became trapped while wearing a climbing harness and ended up hanging upside down from the border wall in eastern Arizona.
Officials from the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) offered few details, but local police said it was a 32-year-old woman who was trying to cross the wall on Monday night near Douglas, Arizona. Her name was not revealed.
Cochise County police said the woman was hung upside down “for a significant amount of time.” The office said it was in contact with the Mexican consulate and is continuing to investigate what happened.
CBP said its Office of Professional Responsibility is working with the sheriff’s office on the investigation and will release more information as it becomes available.
Migrants sometimes die trying to cross the border wall, as was the case of a man who died earlier this month from injuries he sustained when he fell from the barrier in Texas.
It is unknown if there is video surveillance in the area where the woman got entangled. Authorities did not describe the wall she attempted to scale.
Some of the last border wall construction done before the end of former President Donald Trump’s term was in the Douglas area, with 30-foot-tall steel columns.
On April 1, two migrants fell from the border barrier near Clint, Texas, about 12 miles (19 km) west of the Tornillo border bridge. Rescuers transported them to a hospital in El Paso, and one of them died there on April 5.
The second was treated for a broken hand and later deported to Mexico.
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