What happens when U.S. border patrol kills in Mexico?

[Judi Lynn]

By Taylor Dolven on Jun 9, 2017


https://news.vice.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/border_deaths-map-170609-904-mtd-22-1.svg

If José Alfredo Yanez Reyes’ body had hit the ground just a few feet to the south, things might be different. When he was shot and killed by a U.S. border patrol officer on June 21, 2011, after attempting to cross into the United States, his body landed along the invisible line that separates his native Mexico from California. His feet lay in San Ysidro, but his bloodied head lay in Tijuana.

The precise location of his body came to matter when Yanez’s family sued the officer who shot him for wrongful death. If Yanez, 40, had been killed in the United States, the family’s right to sue would be clear. But the civil rights the U.S. Constitution guarantees — and the right to take American officers of the law to court — do not apply outside the country’s borders.

For this reason, the U.S. government insisted that Yanez died in Mexico. To prove it, the U.S. attorney’s office hired a land surveyor to analyze photos of the body at the scene of the shooting. The surveyor drew a yellow line representing the border right through Yanez’s abdomen. By this accounting, the government said, “the majority of his body was in Mexico upon death.”

Yanez’s family disputed the finding, saying he was on American soil when the officer’s bullet struck him in the head and killed him. So far, the judge has allowed the family’s lawsuit to move forward, and the case is awaiting trial. But for at least half a dozen others killed by U.S. border patrol officers under similar circumstances, the border has become the line that separated them not only from their killers but also from their day in court.

More:
https://news.vice.com/story/what-happens-when-u-s-border-patrol-kills-in-mexico