No one expected crossing the border to end this way.
In 2013, a Mexican teenager died while in the custody of the U.S. Border Patrol, in San Ysidro, San Diego, in an incident that reopened questions about how U.S. authorities treat migrant minors detained at their facilities. The case involved legal negotiations that lasted for months between the young man’s family and the U.S. government.
Cruz Velázquez Acevedo was carrying two bottles of liquid methamphetamine, from which he drank four sips under pressure from the authorities. The teenager died in less than two hours.
Attorney Iredale, who represented the family in the proceedings, confirmed that Customs and Border Patrol authorities agreed to pay 1 million dollars in compensation. The figure brings no one back to life, but it remained as the price the state put on a life cut short inside its own detention cells, an outcome that exposes the conditions under which underage migrants die at the hands of the country’s largest border agency.