Things have been heating up on the Mexican-American border at a spot known as Black Bridge, one of the international bridges that connects El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. A U.S. Border Patrol officer shot and killed a 14-year-old boy, Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca. That’s the end of any agreement on what happened. Each country has its own side of the story.
The short version, according to Tony Payan, special to CNN:
The boy lay dead on the Mexican side and the Border Patrol agent was removed from the scene by U.S. officials. American officials say it was a case of self-defense. Mexican authorities condemned the killing as the use of excessive force.
The facts are still coming out, but based on the English and the Spanish news reports, it is easy to see that the two sides do not agree on the particulars, much less on their interpretation.
To people across the two nations who see reports of the death on TV or in the papers, it’s a dramatic news story — a boy with a bullet in his head and an agent under investigation. But here at the border, the scene, the actors, the act — as if carefully choreographed, chosen and scripted — read like an up-close metaphor for everything that is broken with our border and with immigration.
A dead kid is not the kind of incident we need. An endangered border patrol agent doesn’t bode real well with the American people either, especially after the incident several years ago with agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean who were sent to prison for shooting a drug smuggler in the rear end.
Meanwhile the Mexican government has demanded that the border agent be turned over to them for killing a kid in Mexico. The FBI is treating the case as an assault on a federal agent. It sounds like no good will come from this case. Americans are not going to tolerate its border patrol agents being used as cannon fodder.
It sounds like this is an area that needs a new tall, strong fence, given past history in the region. This location is one of the most violent and the dead boy has been linked to drug smuggling. Both countries will have their martyrs.
We either mean business or we don’t. We can’t have our agents and military personnel shooting rubber bullets. Kids who want to throw rocks and anything else at our agents are endangering lives, both their own and the agents, and they need to learn that American kids die every day because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time, often doing the wrong thing. It sounds harsh but that is the reality.
Americans’ insatiable appetite for illegal drugs, Amercan businessess’ demands for cheap labor, and the Mexicans’ desire for a better life are drivng factors in the illegal immigration problem. Somehow we need to find a way to accomodate these competing interests. . We cannot patrol 2000 miles of border and we don’t have the means to deport 20 million people. We have to find a solution. We must have comprehensive immigration reform that would include enhanced border security. We need this sooner rather than later.
Yes we can !! patrol 2000 miles of border and deport 20 million people.
Want to submit a plan for that one? How do you deport 20 million people, just out of curiosity? I know other countries have been able to achieve this but it soiled their reputation.
Why use a wall? Why use patrols? Erect automated sentry guns and trigger them to shoot on anything 48 inches.
Send a few guys every couple of weeks to make sure the mechanisms are clean, oiled and reload ammo as needed.
We are a country who honors human rights.
Why do TP and Marin attempt to sound like Stalin?
Where were these Mexican soldiers when the rock throwing was going on or those kids were trying to run the border? They sure appeared johnny on the spot once the kid was shot.
If you can stop the leak (illegal entry), we already depot some 350,000 per year after stopping an additional 600,000 at the border. That can easilly be more than doubled. The systems and facilities are already in place. As in PWC, once we get serious about our national security and enforceing current law regarding immigration, some will go home on their own to avoid the trauma to family. Over 10 years – the problem will be solved and we can have a rational discussion again.
Now, telling those of us that want immigration laws enforced that they are like Hitler or Stalin moving people around to a Gulag or other camp is really over the line MH. Talk about Insulting! Did I miss your intent? Into moderation!!!
Rocks, bricks … for many years these guys have been sitting there throwing stuff at our border agents with relative impunity. Now they’re SHOCKED that someone got shot.
And the kid, according to a news source, has been involved for some time in human smuggling. Despite his mother’s baloney about how he just went out to play with friends near the border, was hiding behind rocks, and got shot.
I would think it was an accident rather than the agent aiming to hit him in the head …
Collateral damage happenbs in war zones.
Unless the agent demonstrably broke protocol, I would hope that we would support him/her and not hang them out to dry the way we did with Ramos and Campeon.
As to the way Mexico feels about it … if they now understand that we have laws and that our guards shoot bullets, I consider that good. If they are very angry at us, that too is okay with me because most Americans are very angry at them too.
TP, STOP it. Moderation might be a good idea.
How are you going to deport 20 million people?
Insulted? I hope so. Do you understand the logistics of deporting 20 million people?
What does your fantasy have to do with this post? Please show me where you have been relevent.
Starry and Rick have both contributed to the discussion, both in different ways. Talking about mass deportations that would take literally decades to achieve is not productive discussion. We don’t live in a country that does that.
Yep, you’re right — always are.
TP, you can and have made remarks that contribute to this blog. Please continue to make those and leave the mass deportation of 20 million people somewhere else.
All sorts of people with differing political views get along on this blog. They debate but at the end of the day, I think they walk away as friends. Please join us.
Rick, this is not a war zone. And there is NO WAY that the agent knew that that particular kids was who they say he is. Remember, he was never charged, never tried, never convicted. If there was not evidence to even arrest him, what you have are unproven allegations.
I have to ask you all–do you really want to live in a police state? Are you so insecure that you want to arm yourselves in your little immigrant-free bunker and shoot anyone who approaches. Do you not realize how utterly mad that sounds?
I know that this is the current line a reasoning for many of you, but for heaven’s sakes! God gave you brains, it’s time to use them.
Sarah, I don’t think you want to be using the word ‘all’ here. We have people who contribute to this blog who want to deport 20 million people and other people who are married to illegal immigrants. I guess I am trying to tell you to put the broad brush away.
This blog began several years ago as a place for reasonable debate on the immigration issue. That is no longer our primary focus, but we certainly include the topic.
And actually, the topic of the border incident really isn’t about illegal immigration as much as it is about assault of our border agents. We have kids who died every day in the United States because they are involved in things they shouldn’t be. I don’t see this as much different. Sometimes those incidents involve the police, sometimes they don’t. Kids think they are immortal and often make very unwise choices.
We are still fact finding. If the kid’s mother was right, that he just went out to play with his friends (at age 15), then she needed to have told him to chose other friends on a different playground. Rock throwing at border patrol agents or any other American LEO is a really stupid idea and can put the perp at great risk.
Sarah, one more thing…I am sad when any young person dies. It is nothing to celebrate. However, we cannot allow our border patrool agents to get assaulted.
You are right, the kid was never convicted of smuggling and who knows what the border patrol agent knew or didn’t know. Usually when people are being pelted with rocks, which can kill, they don’t stop to ask for a license to check on one’s age.
Moral of the story, don’t throw rocks at those carrying guns. I learned that a long time ago when I was a kid and the Kent State killings happened.
I’m curious. Why am I like Stalin?
Actually I was thinking of the Berlin Wall when I made the comment. Stalin was dead by the time they were popping people off from that location. How about Khrushev?
TP, you are aware that deportation doesn’t always mean a ride home? Many people just don’t follow the deportation orders and disappear into the crowd for a while. I wouldn’t take that 350,000 at face value.
With respect to the above, I think I’ll go with Churchill.
“… we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
If someone invades your house and takes residence you wouldn’t say they were simply a refugee and let them stay would you? You’d kick them out – as you should – since it’s your private property. The US is a soverign country and can determine it’s own laws and who may or may not be allowed entry. They also have the right to defend that property with whatever means neccessary.
Up to a point, I agree. It might be good, in the future, to say CHURCHILL real loudly.
I think we are both off a bit. Hitler didn’t want to come and work in England and the East Germans wanted out, not in.
I don’t think we can defend our border by whatever means necessary if we want to maintain a positive image in the world. For example, I think that putting down land mines on the Sonora Desert might not be a real good way to impress the rest of the world. Putting snipers out in the desert, ditto.
The key difference is that you care what the rest of the world thinks.. I’d rather them leave us alone and vice versa. 🙂
My question is why was the border agent drawn to the river bed? What possible reason could he have had to get within range of the rocks? What ELSE was going on down there?
You need to care about what the rest of the world thinks, Marin. Its easier to talk things out than to shoot things out.
The United States tried isolationism before WWII. It didn’t work.l
Cargo, I have seen videos etc and I have no idea what drew him down there. I think kids were crossing but I have lost track because I have heard so many different things, both in English and in Spanish. I only caught half the Spanish, if that much.
I can’t even visualize what the river bed looks like. It appeared to be concrete. The videos are very poor quality.