Supreme Court hears arguments in murder of Mexican teen by US Border Patrol
By
Barry Grey
23 February 2017
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in a case that exposes the brutality and illegality that characterize the operations of US border police along the militarized boundary between the United States and Mexico. The case takes on added significance coming at the same time as the Trump administration’s enactment of measures to escalate the persecution, detention and deportation of undocumented workers, mainly from Mexico.
The case, Hernandez v. Mesa, concerns the June 2010 murder of an unarmed 15-year-old Mexican youth, Sergio Hernandez Guereca, who was shot in the head at close range by Jesus Mesa, a Border Patrol agent. Mesa, standing on US territory near El Paso, Texas, shot and killed the teenager, who was seeking protection behind a trestle on the Ciudad Juarez side of the border.
The slaying of Sergio Hernandez was part of a pervasive pattern of wanton violence carried out on the Mexican border by the 44,000-strong force of US Border Patrol agents and Customs and Border Protection officers. In 2013, the Arizona Republic published an investigative report documenting the death of at least 42 people, including a minimum of 13 Americans, at the hands of US border police over the previous eight years. It noted that none of the border cops involved in the killings had faced consequences. On at least three occasions, agents shot unarmed teenagers in the back.
This force for terror on the border is to be dramatically expanded under Trump, who has ordered the hiring of an additional 10,000 Customs and Border Protection officers and 5,000 more Border Patrol agents. He has also ordered the expansion of existing detention facilities and the construction of…