The two brothers were being held by Customs and Border Protection in 2019 even though they are U.S. citizens. Court records show that a federal judge in California gave them more than $1 million.
Most of that money went to the sister, who was 9 years old at the time. She was detained for 34 hours after she and her 14-year-old brother were stopped at the San Ysidro border crossing between Mexico and California.
Judge Gonzalo Curiel of the U.S. District Court in San Diego gave the sister $1.1 million on Friday, the brother $175,000 (he was held for 14 hours), and their mother, Thelma Medina, $250,000. In 2022, the family went to court.
Curiel wrote in his ruling that holding the kids in jail went against the Fourth Amendment, which says that people can’t be searched or taken without a warrant.
“The Court therefore finds that the United States’ actions were extreme and unacceptable,” he wrote. There was also no thought given to what might happen to the children if they were held for 14 to 34 hours.
Court records show that the kids lived with their parents in Tijuana, Mexico, but they were born in the U.S., are citizens, and went to school in San Ysidro, California.
On March 18, 2019, the siblings were stopped on the pedestrian bridge by a CBP officer who saw what the officer thought was a mole on the sister’s passport photo. However, court records show that the sister does not have a mole.
Curiel wrote that an officer was chosen for a secondary check “because he had a reputation for getting confessions.” When asked when he and his sister had last crossed paths, the brother gave a false answer. The sister was then taken for an interview by herself.
The family that sued said the sister was forced to say she was someone else, a cousin. The U.S. government, on the other hand, said her brother told police she was the cousin without being told to. Curiel didn’t believe the U.S. answer because he didn’t think the sister would lie and say she was someone else if that were true.
“It wasn’t fair to hold a 9-year-old and a 14-year-old on suspicion of making a false claim of citizenship for over 5 hours in the middle of the workday while their mother and Julia’s godmother tried to get in touch with them,” Curiel wrote.
Medana tried to get answers from CBP while her child was in prison but failed. In the case, she said that she begged for help by calling the Coronado, California, police and the Mexican Consulate.
Medina’s lawsuit calls the time she was apart from her husband “33 hours of terror.” It says that the girl “asked about her parents and brother, and she often cried” while she was in care.
Court papers say she had to see a doctor because she had night terrors after she got out of jail.
A CBP spokeswoman did not answer right away when asked for comment Wednesday evening.
In March, there was a bench hearing, which means the case was before a judge instead of a jury. In his decision on Friday, Curiel said that the government was responsible for false imprisonment, causing mental distress on purpose, and negligence.
Through her lawyer, Medina said on Wednesday, “We are so grateful to Judge Curiel for caring about what happened to my children.”
Joe McMullen, the lawyer, said that when the breach was made public, “CBP leadership took no steps to investigate or correct that behavior.” That wasn’t how other kids should be treated, he said.
Most people coming into or leaving the United States go through the San Ysidro Port of Entry. The government says that every day it handles an average of 70,000 people in cars going north and 20,000 people walking north.
A part of San Diego called San Ysidro is right next to the border between the United States and Mexico.
Source: NBC
