Border securityFamily of Mexican teen killed by border patrol agent in cross border shooting can sue: Judge
A federal judge in Arizona ruled that the mother of a Mexican teen who was killed by a U.S. border patrol agent in a cross-border shooting – the teen was on Mexican soil when he was killed – could continue a lawsuit in the case. In a similar case in Texas, a federal appeals court ruled that a teen killed on Mexican soil by a border agent shooting from the United States – in that case, from El Paso — was not protected by the constitution. U.S. district court judge Raner C. Collins said he respectfully disagreed with that finding of the court in the Texas case. “The court finds that, under the facts alleged in this case, the Mexican national may avail himself to the protections of the fourth amendment and that the agent may not assert qualified immunity,” Collins wrote.
A federal judge ruled that the mother of a Mexican teen who was killed by a U.S. border patrol agent in a cross-border shooting – the teen was on Mexican soil when he was killed – could continue a lawsuit in the case.
Border Patrol Agent Lonnie Swartz, who shot and killed 16-year-old José Antonio Elena Rodríguez, asked the judge to dismiss the civil case against him, but U.S. district court judge Raner C. Collins denied Swartz’s motion.
Swartz’s attorney argued that Elena Rodríguez was not protected by the U.S. constitution because he was in Mexico at the time he was shot and killed.
The Guardian reports that in a similar case in Texas, a federal appeals court ruled that a teen killed on Mexican soil by a border agent shooting from the United States – in that case, from El Paso — was not protected by the constitution.
Judge Collins wrote, however, that he respectfully disagreed with that finding.
“The court finds that, under the facts alleged in this case, the Mexican national may avail himself to the protections of the fourth amendment and that the agent may not assert qualified immunity,” Collins wrote.
Elena Rodríguez was in Nogales, Sonora, near the border fence on the U.S.-Mexico border when Swartz shot him from Nogales, Arizona, on 10 October 2012. The border patrol has said Swartz was defending himself against rock-throwers. Elena Rodríguez’s family says he was not involved in the rock throwing, or in any other wrongdoing.
An investigation by the FBI into the shooting is still is ongoing, and Sean Chapman, Swartz’es attorney, said his client is still an agent with the Border Patrol.
Chapman, who filed the motion to dismiss on behalf of his client, wrote that the teenager was not entitled to constitutional protections because Elena Rodríguez “neither came within the territory of the United States nor developed substantial connections with this country to justify its extraterritorial application.”
The ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of the boy’s mother, and James Lyall, an ACLU attorney on the case, welcomed the ruling.
“The court was right to recognize that constitutional protections don’t stop at the border and that border patrol agents cannot shoot across the border with impunity,” Lyall said.
In the Texas case, a federal appeals court ruled that the family of 15-year-old Sergio Adrián Hernández Guereca, a Mexican national who was shot and killed in June 2010 by U.S. Border Patrol agent Jesus Mesa Jr. near a bridge between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, cannot sue in the United States.
The Border Patrol said Mesa was trying to arrest immigrants who had illegally crossed into the country when rock-throwers attacked him. Mesa fired his weapon across the Rio Grande, striking Hernández Guereca twice.
A three-judge panel of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals initially ruled Hernández Guereca’s family could sue Mesa, but the full court overturned that ruling in April.
