A federal appeals court in San Francisco determined that the family of a Mexican teenage boy can sue the U.S. Border Patrol agent who fatally shot the teenager.
Border Patrol agent Lonnie Swartz Swartz opened fire on U.S. soil on 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, who was in Mexico, through a border fence in 2012. The court failed to grant immunity to Swartz, claiming he “violated a clearly established constitutional right and is thus not immune from the suit.”
Although Swartz’s lawyers claimed that the boy had tossed rocks at Swartz, the appeals court determined he was not posing a threat to anyone and had not been suspected of a crime.
“[Elena Rodriguez] was not suspected of any crime, was not fleeing or resisting arrest and did not pose a threat to anyone, the use of force was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment,” the court majority wrote in an opinion after a 2-1 vote.
“We cannot imagine anyone whose conscience would not be shocked by the cold-blooded murder of an innocent person walking down the street in Mexico or Canada by a U.S. Border Patrol agent on the American side of the border,” the court added.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Elena Rodriguez’s family, celebrated the court’s ruling.
“The court made clear that the Constitution does not stop at the border and that agents should not have constitutional immunity to fatally shoot Mexican teenagers on the other side of the border fence,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “The ruling could not have come at a more important time, when this administration is seeking to further militarize the border.”
