Abuses committed by U.S. border patrol personnel on Mexican territory have resulted in several fatalities over the last twenty years…the situation has led some of their relatives to bring their cases before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights after Washington denied them access to justice. Our colleague Antonio Aranda gives us the details. teleSUR
00:01And abuses committed by U.S. Border Patrol personnel on Mexican territory have resulted in several fatalities over the last 20 years.
00:11The situation has led to some of their relatives to bring their cases before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights after Washington denied them access to justice.
00:21Our colleague Antonio Aranda gives us all the details.
00:23Six families of Mexicans who were killed by border patrols agents firing from the United States into Mexican territory seek justice.
00:35One of them is Mr. Taide, whose 16-year-old grandson, José Antonio, was shot eight times by a border agent who claimed that the teenager threw stones at him from Nogales, Chihuahua, on the Mexican side.
00:56It happened on October 10, 2012, at 9.30 p.m.
01:05When he was walking home, two blocks before he got there, they killed him.
01:21My grandson's death is the most criminal, most inhuman death because of many gunshots.
01:29Sergio, another 15-year-old teenager, was killed by a border patrol agent who claimed that the young man was a drug dealer.
01:39Guadalupe, his mother, says that it's false and regards that the perpetrator wasn't even brought to trial.
01:45My son's case was in Ciudad Juarez. He was killed by a border patrol agent on June 7, 2010.
01:56He never set foot in jail, he never had a trial, and he continues to work. They do take away people who do wrong in the United States, but we don't get justice just because we are Mexican.
02:13For the families of the victim, there is new hope of obtaining justice after use on impunity, says the lawyer who is leading the legal defense.
02:23We are alleging that this is not only an arbitrary deprivation of the right to life, but also a violation of equality under the law due to discrimination,
02:33understanding that the United States will not open the doors to justice.
02:37We are taking this case to the Inter-American Commission so that it may ask the United States to compensate this family for the immense pains they have suffered and to commit to a bilateral agreement where the United States and Mexico can bring these cases when they occur and can have a fair resolution.
02:55In addition to compensating the families for the damage caused, the aim is to change the operating protocols of the U.S. Border Patrol so that there are no more murders of innocent people in Mexico, Rodriguez states.
03:06We are asking for at least minimal recognition that what the guilty parties did is illegal and that the Border Patrol's policy of shooting, even when there is no legal threat, is illegal and must be completely eradicated.
03:20Human rights activist groups on the border point out that the so-called Border Patrol has been linked to at least 400 cases of unjustified assaults from U.S. soil onto the Mexican side over the last 10 years.
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