Hernandez and Guereca Bentacour v United States and ors

What was at stake

An appeal judgment regarding immigration and human rights.

What happened

On June 7, 2010, fifteen-year-old Mexican national Sergio Adrián Hernández Güereca was shot and killed by U.S. Border Patrol Agent Jesus Mesa Jr. while standing on Mexican soil near the Paso del Norte culvert at the U.S.-Mexico border in Ciudad Juárez. Hernández was allegedly throwing rocks at Border Patrol agents from the Mexican side of the border. His family, including his father Jesus Hernández and mother María Jesús Bentacour, brought suit in U.S. federal courts seeking damages, arguing that the shooting violated Sergio's Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution.

How the court got there

The court addressed whether the Constitution's Fourth and Fifth Amendment protections extend extraterritorially to foreign nationals on foreign soil who have no voluntary connection to the United States. The majority relied on the framework established in United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, which limits constitutional protections to persons with substantial connections to the United States, holding that a Mexican national standing on Mexican soil did not fall within the class of persons protected by those amendments. Foreign policy and separation-of-powers concerns further supported judicial restraint in extending Bivens remedies across the international border.

Who pushed back

Judges on the Fifth Circuit panel disagreed on whether the cross-border nature of the shooting (agent in U.S., victim in Mexico) should preclude constitutional protection; some judges would have allowed the Fourth Amendment claim to proceed on the basis that the agent's conduct occurred entirely within U.S. territory.

Statutes and cases cited

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