Moments after he was deported, a Mexican man jumped to his death off a border bridge, authorities believe
Guadalupe Olivas Valencia was surrounded by cars and surveillance cameras as he made his last, desperate attempt to cross the border from Tijuana, Mexico into the U.S. on Monday. Passing through the car lanes of the San Ysidro Port of Entry, the busiest land border crossing in the Western Hemisphere, his odds of making it past immigration authorities were slim.
Border officials soon stopped him. Unable to show legal documents to enter the U.S., Olivas Valencia, 45, was detained, and the following morning, deported. Less than an hour later, Olivas Valencia was seen on a bridge a few hundred feet away from the office where he was deported, throwing himself off it into the dry channel below. Witnesses told local media outlets that the man appeared to be in major distress, and could be heard shouting that he did not want to return to Mexico.
Tijuana police found the man shortly after 9 a.m. Tuesday, responding to a 9-1-1 call of an apparent suicide, according to a report obtained by The Washington Post. Olivas Valencia, still alive, lay below the bridge, and next to his head was a plastic bag similar to the one U.S. immigration authorities give to deportees, filled with a change of clothes and food to survive the journey back to Mexico, Mexican media outlets reported