An opinion published by the U.S. Court of Appeals on June 30, 2014, involving the death of a Mexican citizen shot and killed in Mexico by a Border Patrol Agent ruled against the federal agency. This is another blow to an agency that has already been heavily criticized over the past year due to claims of excessive force, lack of transparency, and lack of sufficient action in relation to allegations of abuse by its officers.

In 2010, fifteen year old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca, was standing on the Mexican side of the border with a group of friends playing in a cement culvert with steep inclines and using the U.S. barbed wire fence as the base line in the game.

A Border Patrol agent that arrived on scene detained one of Sergio's friends. Sergio hid under the pillars of a cross-border bridge to watch the detention take place. He was then shot at by an agent and died as a result of the impact of a bullet that hit him in the face. The Federal Agency claimed that the boy was throwing rocks at the officer, claims that his family's attorney denies. The agent involved in the shooting was not charged with a crime nor disciplined for the teen's death.

His parents sued the U.S. agency and the federal employees for use of deadly force and for failure to implement adequate procedures regarding the use of reasonable force during arrests, among other claims. The lawsuit also claimed a violation of the boy's international rights. Some claims were struck down in a district court ruling because they pertained to rights that are arguably only granted on persons in the U.S, and the remaining claims were struck down based on the agency's asserted "sovereign immunity" protections.

Sovereign immunity is a legal doctrine under which the government is immune from civil suit or criminal prosecution. In order for the government to be sued, the immunity must be waived, which is mainly done if the wrongful act of a federal employee causes harm. In order for a party to be enabled to sue the government, it must first be receive permission to sue from the government itself. This is essentially what has happened in the present case.

The Court of the Appeals disagreed with the lower court's decision in part by stating that, although Hernandez was standing in Mexico when he was shot, the injury occurred in the United States by the fact that the trigger was pulled by an agent in the U.S. The opinion specifically states that "we have already recognized that aliens inside our border are entitled to be free of gross physical abuse at the hands of state or federal officials" and classified the alleged conduct of this officer as wrong and likely unlawful, whether or not the "impact was felt outside our borders."

Therefore, the alleged facts of the case defeat claims of qualified immunity, and further proceedings are warranted. The case has been remanded back to a lower court where the teen's parents will be able to once again make a case against the agency for the wrongful death of their son.

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