Government Security News February 2017 Digital Edition

Supreme Court hears case on shooting of 15-year
old Sergio Hernandez by U.S. Border Patrol Agent
By Walter Ewing
Officers with U.S. Customs and Border
Protection (CBP)—the federal
agency which includes the Border
Patrol—are rarely held accountable
for their actions. Nowhere is this
more apparent than in the case of
Sergio Hernandez, a 15-year-old
boy shot dead in 2010 in Mexico by
a Border Patrol agent who fired on
him from the U.S. side of the border.
The agent in question has never
faced criminal charges for the
killing. The boy’s mother brought
a civil suit against the agent for
damages, and her case was argued
before the Supreme Court on February
21.
The central question before the
Court is whether a federal court
has the authority to consider a
civil suit such as this. The Court
will determine, then, whether the
agent must stand trial to account
for his deadly conduct. But this case
will have ramifications well beyond
the actions of one Border Patrol
agent because his actions represent
a systemic lack of accountability
within CBP.
Rather than fix the system, the
Trump administration is proposing
to throw gasoline on the fire; adding
thousands of new CBP officers to
the mix without doing anything to
ensure that the rights of the people
whom CBP encounters are respected.
The results could well prove fatal
to more immigrants, regardless of
which side of the border they find
themselves on.
The Hernandez case is egregious
in a number of ways. According to
the brief filed by his family, Sergio
was playing with two friends just
over the border from El Paso in
Juarez. As is common among the
children of Juarez, Sergio and his
companions were running up the
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side of a concrete culvert and touching
that 18-foot-high border fence
before running back down. Since
they were playing and not trying to
enter the United States, they did this
in plain view of the Paso del Norte
Port of Entry.
Needless to say, they were unarmed.
Nevertheless, a Border Patrol
agent named Jesus Mesa took
exception to this behavior and
grabbed one of the boys as they ran
back down the culvert. Mesa then
drew his weapon and fired down
into the culvert, hitting Sergio in
the head. Mesa claimed that Sergio
was throwing rocks at him.
Because Sergio was standing in
Mexico when Mesa killed him, the
U.S. government is claiming that
Mesa cannot be sued for violating
Sergio’s rights.
If the Supreme Court sides with
Photo: Pete Jordan
Mesa in this case, it is tantamount
to declaring open season on anyone
standing on the wrong side of
the U.S.-Mexico borderline. Then
again, it was already a declaration
of open season when no criminal
charges were filed against Mesa. In
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