Slate Magazine
•67% Informative
José Antonio Elena Rodríguez was 16 years old in 2012 when he was killed by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent.
After the agent was tried but found not guilty of second-degree murder, the boy's family sued the agent responsible.
In June 2020, the family’s lawsuit ended anticlimactically in dismissal before a jury even had the chance to see any evidence.
That spring, the Supreme Court ruled in a separate case that federal agents could not be sued in cross-border disputes.
In Hernández v. Mesa, the Supreme Court established a new precedent specifically for federal law enforcement officers that allows them to act with impunity at the border.
In 2020, the year the court ruled, the Border Patrol’s National Use of Force Review Board cleared all eight lethal use-of-force incidents for that fiscal year.
“The U.S. government is very wrong to allow these killings to happen, to allow the Supreme Court to make this ruling,” said Taide Elena. “If this is allowed, anything is possible.”.
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