This incident marks another friction point between Mexico and Texas due to Governor Abbott’s anti-immigrant policies.
On Thursday, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) accused the Texas National Guard of violating international law by shooting a Mexican man in the Rio Grande, the river shared by Mexico and the United States.
“It’s a violation of international law because you can’t shoot from the U.S. side to the other side of the river, which is already our territory,” he said.
The Mexican president referred to an incident that took place on Saturday on the bank of the Rio Grande in Ciudad Juarez, bordering the U.S. city of El Paso, where a National Guard member fired from U.S. territory into Mexico.
While it was initially mentioned that the victim was a migrant, local authorities identified the victim as Darwin Garcia, a 37-year-old man from Veracruz, who was on a dirt path used by runners and cyclists for exercise over 10 meters from the riverbed.
“Texas authorities argue that it was in defense of a migrant, that the injured person wanted to harm a migrant, and that’s why he fired into the air and then at the person,” said AMLO, announcing that the Mexican government has initiated an investigation into this incident.
On Wednesday, officials from the Mexican Consulate in El Paso met with representatives of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), expressing that the incident is “unacceptable” and voicing their concern about the impact on human rights and migrant safety.
“The injured person in Ciudad Juarez was fortunately discharged yesterday. However, there is an ongoing investigation, and the person who fired from the Texas Guard has been temporarily suspended from duty pending a full investigation,” AMLO stated.
This incident marks another friction point between Mexico and Texas due to Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s anti-immigrant policies.
On Aug. 3, AMLO labeled Abbott as “inhumane” following the deaths of two individuals in the Rio Grande, where Abbott had placed buoys and a wire fence to prevent migrant crossings.
The Mexican Foreign Affairs Ministry has sent three diplomatic notes to Washington to lodge complaints about the buoys, alleging that they violate migrants’ human rights and international water treaties.
So an injured migrant (how did he get injured?) was on the Mexican side of the border. Was approached by a guy on a motorcycle. And the Texas guard decided to shoot the guy? Because, according to the Texas Guard, e was trying to harm the migrant?
So… Obviously made up story to justify what is still an illegal act.
These guys have abandoned all pretense of adhering to the rule of law.
been temporarily suspended from duty pending a full investigation
and the classic US way of “paid vacation for (attempted) murder”
The military isn’t the police. Dude will face punishment.
Yeah.
We hold soldiers to a much higher standard than cops.
Cops can shoot all their bullets at someone because the felt scared.
A soldier pretty much has to be under fire, and even then they’re not supposed to keep shooting till their out of bullets
Yeah just like all the rapists do, right?
Military justice is a joke, hidden from public eye.
The difference is those often get swept under the rug by the chain of command. THIS is public and big, it’s not going away.
Thats two people under the same command, and the entire command wants to make it go away ASAP so it doesn’t look bad.
Rape is a huge issue in the military, but it’s a lot different when something happens to a foreign national and both countries press catches wind of it.
Sexual assault is a systemic issue in the military mainly due to chain of command. There have been recent pushes to change the process on how it is handled since there have been too many reports of the issue being swept under the rug due to team cohesion. These are two separate issues though and should be approached as such.
No, wait, you don’t understand. The guys who signed up to round up and (possibly) kill migrants were trying to protect a guy in another country. /s
It is the National Guard, there are probably way more people there for GI Bill benefits than some political ideology.
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Just a reminder the republican platform is we should invade and bombs Mexico, that’s what they say we should do
Which psycho politician had said this?
An act of war, you say.
I wonder why those Americans were shooting people in a river in the first place. That’s their solution to everything, shoot people. Got a problem? Shoot at it.
If you’re so smart, how do you turn the light switch off after you get in bed without firing a shot?
“Alexa, shoot the bedroom lights”
Cut on the lights
Why use lights? Muzzle flash is the new in for light sources in the US. It even saves on the electric bill!
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It’s worse than that. The shots were fired across the river into Mexican territory. The national guard should know their authority on that type of situation. This was a major fuck up and they are definitely being chewed out for the mountains of paperwork he just created. Stuff like this isn’t easily swept under the rug, especially if our southern neighbor pushes the issue.
Hmm but we can’t apply that to the problem most of the country has with the Texas government, a weird double standard
I guess that you are joking, and I disagree with their stupid policy, but it’s not really that weird for policies to be different in the border of a country with inter country borders. It’s not a double standard, they are clearly two well defined different standards.
It’s not on the border it was on the other side of the border, the guy with the gun was on the Texas side of the border
That’s the thing, no? US has laws against immigrants and acts according to those. Now, the dude didn’t follow it’s own laws and yeah we know that they are corrupt and he won’t get shit, but what I’m saying is that laws about interacting with fellow citizens will always be different than laws interaction with external people
The laws of the United States apply to everyone on its soil, the guy who blasted away this other guy committed a crime and must be held to account
But they work for the government so that won’t be happening
Sure but then I don’t get which double standard you were mentioning with this incident and the issue that the rest of the US has with texas.
I’m not defending this fact at all, I genuinely don’t understand why is there a double standard with Mexico-us policies and non texas us-texas policies, they are different laws, double standards exist where reality works differently with how it should happen.
Are you saying that you should be allowed to shoot texas that try to go to anywhere on the US that is not texas? People jump quite fast to aggressive comments as if I was implying that what happened is remotely okay, I just don’t get how your double standards comment makes sense.
What you should have said was nothing.
“Texas authorities argue that it was in defense of a migrant, that the injured person wanted to harm a migrant, and that’s why he fired into the air and then at the person,” said AMLO
Pretty sure that’s still illegal.
Only when the perpetrator isn’t Republican.
The US government doesn’t believe that international laws apply to them - and they’re kinda correct, nobody has a big enough military to really stand up to them.
Illegal yes, morally wrong, I would say no.
If(and it’s a big if) this is an accurate statement, then defending a presumably innocent person from harm should take higher priority than complying with jurisdictional boundaries.
In this case, it isn’t quite “defending”. With the distance involved, the chance of hitting your target and the risk of hitting someone else, it really is not something you should be doing.
We must invade Texas to restore the rules-based international order and to bring about freedom and democracy.
im just wondering what the fuck Texas, a state, is doing with its personnel regulating an international border. US states have no rights to regulate borders with other US states, much less the international one
'murica
No idea what really happened, but whether the story as presented in this article is true or not. The fact remains that even IF a US National Guardsmen really was “defending” a migrant, he shouldn’t hav. That isn’t how national relations work, and even if he were Jesus and 100% morally correct (he wasn’t) he STILL shouldn’t have done that. As long as borders exist, your morality can’t extend beyond your country unless you are willing to accept the consequences of the most bad faith interpretations and outcomes.
