The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, DC, has agreed to open a case against the US government for the murder and cover-up of Anastasio Hernández Rojas, who was killed by border agents seven years ago. Hernández Rojas died as he tried to cross the border to return to San Diego, where he had lived for 25 years and had fathered five children. The San Diego Coroner’s Office classified Anastasio Hernández Rojas’s death as a homicide, concluding he suffered a heart attack as well as “bruising to his chest, stomach, hips, knees, back, lips, head and eyelids; five broken ribs; and a damaged spine.” We speak to Christian Ramirez, the director of Southern Border Communities Coalition and human rights director of Alliance San Diego.
TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: “Tijuana Makes Me Happy” by Nortec Collective, here on Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Tijuana, just over the border from here. We’re in San Diego, California. I’m Amy Goodman. This is Democracy Now!
We turn now to an unprecedented effort to hold the United States responsible for violence committed by its Customs and Border Protection agents. Seven years ago, in May 2010, a Mexican immigrant named Anastasio Hernández Rojas tried to cross the border to return to San Diego, where he had lived for 25 years and had fathered five children. He was then stopped by Border Patrol agents. He would never see his children again.
The agents said Hernández Rojas had become hostile and resisted arrest, but eyewitness video showed the agents beat and tasered him.
Footage of Hernández Rojas’s death was obtained by reporter John Carlos Frey and aired in a 2012 PBS report by correspondent John Larson.
ANASTASIO HERNÁNDEZ ROJAS: [translated] Please! Señores, help me!
JOHN LARSON: What US border agents did not realize is that eyewitness videos of the incident caught the sounds of Hernández Rojas screaming and pleading for his life.
ANASTASIO HERNÁNDEZ ROJAS: [translated] No!…