A San Diego federal judge has ruled that border officers at the San Ysidro Port of Entry falsely imprisoned a 9-year-old U.S. citizen for 34 hours, violating the Fourth Amendment rights of the girl and her teen brother, who was falsely imprisoned for about 14 hours, as the siblings were trying to cross the border to attend school.
U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel awarded the girl and her family more than $1.5 million in damages, ruling that U.S. Customs and Border Protection is liable for false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence in connection with the 2019 incident.
Curiel found that CBP officers mistakenly believed, based in part on a coerced false confession from the girl, Julia, that she was actually her Mexican cousin trying to cross the border under an assumed identity.
“The United States’ conduct was extreme and outrageous,” Curiel wrote in his decision, referencing the legal threshold necessary for a finding of intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Curiel made the ruling Friday, three months after he presided over a bench trial in San Diego federal court in a civil case brought by the siblings and their mother, Thelma Medina Navarro. The judge awarded Julia, now in her early teens, $1.1 million. He awarded $250,000 to Medina and $175,000 to the brother, Oscar.
“We are grateful to Judge Curiel for his decision,” Medina told the Union-Tribune through the family’s attorney, Joseph McMullen.
“Judge Curiel’s verdict is a powerful statement that CBP officers must follow the rules just like everyone else, especially when it comes to the treatment of children,” McMullen said.
A CBP spokesperson said the agency “takes all complaints seriously and makes a good faith effort to resolve all complaints justly and fairly, including complying fully with orders issued by the federal district courts.”
The incident in question began on March 18, 2019, when Julia and Oscar, who lived with their parents and other siblings in Tijuana, were attempting to make their usual morning border crossing to attend school in San Ysidro, according to a detailed finding of facts by Curiel. On this particular morning, they were crossing in a pedestrian lane with the son and daughter of their godmother.
Their problems began when a CBP officer at the primary checkpoint noticed what she believed to be a facial mole on Julia’s passport photo card that Julia did not have in person. The officer sent Julia and Oscar for a secondary inspection, where a supervisor chose an officer with “a reputation for obtaining confessions” to interview them.
That officer, Willmy Lara, testified that two other officers were present when he interviewed Julia without her brother, the judge wrote. But Curiel found that was not true, writing that no one else was in the room. “The Court finds that Officer Lara violated the CBP policy requiring a witness for interviews of children and otherwise failed to record the interview,” the judge wrote.
What happened in that interview was a central conflict of the case and the trial. McMullen, the family’s lawyer, argued that Lara …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
