{"id":1201,"date":"2023-01-21T12:40:27","date_gmt":"2023-01-21T17:40:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/immigration-law-journal\/?page_id=1201"},"modified":"2025-05-12T11:10:06","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:10:06","slug":"state-sanctioned-abuses-at-the-u-s-mexico-border-using-the-inter-american-commission-on-human-rights-to-hold-the-united-states-to-account","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/immigration-law-journal\/in-print\/volume-37-issue-1-fall-2022\/state-sanctioned-abuses-at-the-u-s-mexico-border-using-the-inter-american-commission-on-human-rights-to-hold-the-united-states-to-account\/","title":{"rendered":"State-Sanctioned Abuses at the U.S.-Mexico Border: Using the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to Hold the United States to Account"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In May 2010, Anastasio Hern<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00e1<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">ndez Rojas died after sustaining brutal injuries at the hands of U.S. Border Patrol. His death has since become one of the highest-profile incidents of Border Patrol\u2019s excessive use of force against migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. Despite video footage released from the scene depicting abusive acts by Border Patrol and calls from Congress to investigate the incident, not a single officer was held accountable and, in 2015, DOJ declined to pursue criminal charges. But renewed hope for justice came in 2016, when the family of Anastasio Hern<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00e1<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">ndez Rojas took their case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Commission<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201d<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">). This case is the first before the Commission to address law enforcement violence at the U.S.-Mexico border and the first to accuse U.S. law enforcement of an\u00a0 extrajudicial killing. This Note examines how a Commission decision against the United States in this case may encourage meaningful reform in law and policy related to border abuses in the United States. Specifically, this Note argues that a Commission decision against the United States has the power to increase international attention on abuses at the U.S.-Mexico border, facilitate activism around excessive use of force at the border, and reframe border abuses as human rights issues. Ultimately, the decision in the <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Anastasio Hern\u00e1ndez Rojas <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">case can pave the way for similarly situated victims to make use of the Commission to hold the United States accountable for state-sanctioned human rights abuses.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Continue Reading <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/immigration-law-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2023\/01\/GT-GILJ220040.pdf\"><strong>State-Sanctioned Abuses at the U.S.-Mexico Border: Using the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to Hold the United States to Account<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/immigration-law-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2023\/01\/GT-GILJ220040.pdf\" class=\"pdfemb-viewer\" style=\"\" data-width=\"max\" data-height=\"max\" data-toolbar=\"bottom\" data-toolbar-fixed=\"off\">GT-GILJ220040<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In May 2010, Anastasio Hern\u00e1ndez Rojas died after sustaining brutal injuries at the hands of U.S. Border Patrol. His death has since become one of the highest-profile incidents of Border [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10435,"featured_media":0,"parent":1155,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-1201","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/immigration-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/immigration-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/immigration-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/immigration-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10435"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/immigration-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1201"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/immigration-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1219,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/immigration-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1201\/revisions\/1219"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/immigration-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/immigration-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}