The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the parents of a Mexican teenager who was shot dead over the border by a Border Patrol agent cannot sue in U.S. courts.
The parents argued that the Border Patrol used excessive force.
Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca was shot and killed by Border Patrol Agent Jesus Mesa Jr., in 2010. Mesa was on U.S. soil in Texas when he fired the fatal shot at the 15-year-old, 60 ft. away on the southern side of the border in Ciudad Juarez.
Mesa said there was a group of suspected illegal immigrants in a culvert that runs along the border who were throwing rocks at him.
Justice Samuel Alito cited strong border security and international relations issues in writing for the court, Roll Call reported.
“Since regulating the conduct of agents at the border unquestionably has national security implications, the risk of undermining border security provides reasons to hesitate” about allowing the parents to sue in American courts, Alito wrote.
Alito also noted that the Justice Department did not charge Mesa, having concluded that he had not violated Customs and Border Protection policy or training.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the liberal jurists, disagreed. She said that the parents’ lawsuit does not endanger border security or U.S. foreign policy.
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Ginsburg said the teen’s exact location in the culvert when he was shot “should not matter one whit” when the United States has jurisdiction to govern a Border Patrol agent’s conduct in this country, according to Roll Call.
“It scarcely makes sense for a remedy trained on deterring rogue officer conduct to turn upon a happenstance subsequent to the conduct — a bullet landing in one half of a culvert, not the other,” she wrote.
The leftists believe everyone in the U.S. has rights over Americans. Guereca had a history of human smuggling and was a convicted juvenile offender.
His parents tried to say he was an ‘A’ student who was simply playing with his friends.
Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who argued the case, disagreed with the ruling, NBC News reported.
“The gravity of this ruling could not be clearer given the Trump administration”s militarized rhetoric and policies targeting people at the border. Border agents should not have immunity to fatally shoot Mexican teenagers on the other side of the border fence,” Gelernt said. “The Constitution does not stop at the border.”
It’s a big Loss for the hard-left and the ACLU that wants to make this a regular thing. If activist judges can make this legal, Border Patrol will have their hands tied.
The media, especially the AP are very distressed that the U.S. Border Patrol won this case.
The family wanted $25 million. It also would have eliminated self-defense for border agents.
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