A Mexican woman who escaped from a Border Patrol agent’s handcuffs then made a run back toward the border and fell off a cliff has died of her injuries, the agency said Saturday.
The woman, who wasn’t identified, was part of a group of four people apprehended Friday by a lone agent near Laredo, Texas. The agent used three pairs of handcuffs to link the four, then was shepherding them through a barbed wire fence to get to a Border Patrol vehicle.
The woman worked her hand free of the handcuffs and ran toward the Rio Grande, but in the darkness she fell off a 20-foot cliff, the agency said. Her head struck a log near the river’s edge.
She was declared dead by Laredo Fire Department personnel at the scene.
Her death follows that of an illegal immigrant who died after a fall from the border wall.
Another illegal immigrant flagged down an agent in Yuma on Wednesday and said a fellow migrant had fallen from the 30-foot wall. Medical personnel were summoned but couldn’t reach the site through the small Border Patrol gate, so agents had to carry the man on a backboard for about a mile to get to the rescue crew.
The man was airlifted to a hospital and underwent surgery but died eight hours later, the agency said.
Fiscal year 2021 is flirting with the record for border deaths, set in 2005.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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