Supreme Court To Hear Case On Whether Family Can Sue Border Agent Who Shot Mexican Teen

The Supreme Court will take up a case about whether the family of a Mexican teen migrant killed by a U.S. Border Protection agent in a cross-border shooting can sue the officer to collect damages. 

Hernandez v. Mesa centers around whether the shooting can be considered a violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Supreme Court has already heard arguments in this case, back in 2017, but then sent the case back to a lower court for more hearings. 

The shooting took place in 2010 on the border between El Paso in Texas and Ciudad Juarez. Agent Jesus Mesa was on the U.S. side of the border, and 15-year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca on the Mexican side, when Mesa shot and killed the teen. The agent says he fired because people were throwing rocks at him from the Mexican side of the border.