The Supreme Court Just Gave the Border Patrol a License to Kill
SlateBack in 2010, 15-year-old Sergio Hernández was hanging out along the Mexican side of the Southern border with his friends, playing a game where they would touch a fence on the border and then run back. This case may seem singular and specific, but it really isn’t—it’s part of a pattern at the Supreme Court that shows how the conservative majority is remaking immigration law, one ruling at a time. On Monday’s episode of What Next, I spoke with Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the Supreme Court, about why this case is such a big deal and what the consequences could be. So even when victims of police violence come to this court and are seeking justice for constitutional violations—even when Congress has allowed that to proceed—this court will often say, We’re not going to let you do that because we don’t want to tie the hands of law enforcement officers and make them afraid to use force when they really need to. If you don’t let victims of CBP officers sue them in federal court, there will be no justice for the victims, because the U.S. government is never going to punish these officers.
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Supreme Court is faulted for shielding police officers from excessive-force claims
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