Mexican Government Backs Lawsuit Against U.S. Border Patrol Agent

The Mexican government is throwing its weight behind a U.S. lawsuit filed by the parents of a Mexican teenager who was killed in his country when a U.S. Border Patrol agent fired his weapon across the border.

When agents of the United States Government violate fundamental rights of Mexican nationals, it is one of Mexicos priorities to ensure that the United States has provided adequate means to hold the agents accountable and compensate the victims, lawyers for the Mexican governmentwrote in a brief filed on Thursday.

The case marks the first time a U.S. appeals court has considered the legal implications of a cross-border shooting. The question before the New Orleans-based Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is whether the U.S. Constitution reaches into the Mexican side of the 2,000-mile border with the U.S.

The Fifth Circuit ruled 2-1 in June that the parents ofSergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca could sueU.S. Border Patrol Agent Jesus Mesa Jr. for alleged violations of the Fifth Amendment, which provides that no person shall be . . . deprived of life,liberty, or property, without due process of law.

The panel threw out claims against the U.S. government and Mr. Mesas supervisors. The Fifth Circuit has agreed to rehear the case, with all active judges participating, at the request of the U.S. government and Mr. Mesa.

The Mexican government sought to assure the court that it had no qualms about the U.S. Constitution nosing into its territory, in this instance at least.

Any invasion of Mexicos sovereigntyoccurred when Agent Mesa shot his gun across the border at SergioHernndez. Requiring Agent Mesa to answer for that action in U.S. courttothe same extent as if Hernndez were a U.S. national or on U.S. soilonly shows respect for Mexicos sovereignty, the brief said.

The lawsuit alleges that in June 2010, Mr. Hernndez was playing with a group of friends in the cement culvert that separates El Paso, Texas, from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The game involved touching the barbed-wire fence on the U.S. side of the border, and then running back down the incline of the culvert into Mexico.

When Mr. Mesa arrived on the scene, he detained one of Mr. Hernndezs friends on the U.S. side of the border. Still in U.S. territory, Mr. Mesa then shot Mr. Hernndez, who had retreated down the culvert back into Mexico, according to the complaint.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said after the incident that Mr. Mesa, who is still a member of the Border Patrol, used force because the group was throwing rocks at him, ignoring his commands to stop.

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Mexican Government Backs Lawsuit Against U.S. Border Patrol Agent