Frustration and indignation is what relatives and activists feel in the face of the lack of clarification surrounding several immigrants’ deaths at the hands of the Border Patrol.
“It’s almost two years since the death of my son and nothing has happened, nobody can give me an answer,” Guadalupe Guerrero told Efe.
Guerrero is the mother of young Mexican-American Carlos Lamadrid, who was killed March 21, 2011, by a Border Patrol officer on the Arizona border with Mexico.
According to the authorities’ investigation, the 19-year-old and a companion were riding in a pickup truck and tried to elude the authorities by driving toward the border fence with the intention of crossing over to the Mexican side in the city of Douglas, Arizona.
While Lamadrid was climbing a ladder to get over the border fence, a Border Patrol officer fatally shot him.
At the time, the federal agent told investigators that he shot the young man to “defend himself” from the stones that others were throwing at him from the Mexican side.
“The only thing we want is justice for my son, for someone to give me answers, but nobody is telling me anything. The only thing they say to me is always that the case remains under investigation,” Guerrero said.
The woman will lead a march on March 21 to the site where her son died to honor his memory.
The deaths of people at the hands of Border Patrol agents along the frontier with Mexico concerns organizations like the Arizona Human Rights Coalition.
At least 19 people, according to the coalition, have died over the past two years in incidents involving Border Patrol officers along the U.S.-Mexican border.
