Juan Diego Badillo’s column was fractured by an agent of the border patrol . He told it a day before to start rehabilitation therapy to save his broken body and previous warning from the doctors: it will never be the same again.
This means that you will not be able to meet the goal for which you emigrated to United States to your 20 years, last March: work in construction or gardening or any other physical work as he did in the countryside of the state of Hidalgo, where his parents stayed, where he has two sisters.
The tragedy occurred in a few minutes. He had crossed into the US from Ciudad Juárez, jumping over the wall along with two other boys from his town and everything was going well on the walk when a Border truck appeared Patrol. Suddenly he did not see his companions. They had hidden between some bushes and he started running.
Long strides with all the strength and speed that was possible, but the vehicle in which the ICE agent was traveling was faster. Frightened by the proximity of the vehicle, Juan Diego Badillo tangled with his feet and fell. Face down He turned around to see the sky and get up. He was in those when he felt the blow to his back.
“It was with the defense”, he remembers.
The patrol car must have gone at very high speed because his whole body thundered upon impact. The pain was such that he could not even notice the agent’s face, whether it was blond or brown. If he had a beard or mustache. High or low. Nothing.
Only that he was alone and that he spoke Spanish very well. He said: “This is to make you realize that there may be consequences if you cross illegally.”
The United States government is betting on in recent years to the physical persecution of undocumented persons in the border region with more surveillance. The number of ICE agents went from being around 4, on 1994 To over 19, 000 in fiscal year 2019 and its annual budget increased 10 times up to 4.9 billion dollars, the The largest police agency in the country.
This condition has allowed them to strengthen themselves in technology of all kinds to detect with greater precision the income of suspicious groups at the same time as they have improved the types of pursuit vehicles i used zan in the face of the notable increase in the crossing of undocumented immigrants.
Last March they exceeded 172, 06 crosses, according to official US figures. This is the highest monthly level in 22 years, by increasing a 71% increase compared to February and five times more than in the same month of 2020.
Juan Diego Badillo recalls that the persecution against him was in a Hummer-type unit and he received the blow from it. He has the testimonies of his friends from the town that they observed from their hiding places.
At some point, the agent called an ambulance to take the immigrant to the University Hospital , where he was diagnosed with the fracture in the spine and in the left leg. They operated it right there.
To date, the Border Patrol has not made a public statement about this case. It only sent a letter to Uriel Delgado, a partner at the Ramírez y Asociados law firm, who has the matter in his hands. [1] [
In the letter, ICE promised to “investigate” the facts and promised that shortly they would give an answer on the responsibility of their officer. Days later, the institution contacted again to inform that they had reached the conclusion that the agent had not acted with treachery, premeditation or advantage.
“The affected and the Witnesses say it was intentional and that is why we are requesting more information on the case, ”says lawyer Uriel Delgado in an interview with this medium. “We have asked for the investigation folder, the complete file to review it, see the agent’s version of the incident, the medical documentation or if there has already been any punishment.”
Frequent cases?
While Juan Badillo was in the operating room, several issues of concern were happening around him. Among them, the presence of an ICE guard who was walking through the corridors of the hospital waiting for the victim to come out alive and recover to be deported. Miles further north, Juanita Badillo, sister of the wounded man, snapped her fingers for help.
I found out what had happened to Juan because his fellow migrants from the town called me and then he called me, when he was able to speak after the surgery ”, recalls Juanita.
Asking here and there he went to find the Ramírez y Asociados office. Abath Ramírez contacted the lawyer Uribe, specialized in migration, who began to write emails left and right to the ICE headquarters to stop any attempt to expel Juan Diego Badillo from the country.
A Border Patrol lawyer answered to confirm that they would not throw him out of the country, that they would give the victim a humanitarian permit while it is determined what exactly happened, if there was any misconduct by the ICE patrolman.
Ten days later they gave the boy was discharged with a walker so that he could come out on his own foot. But he couldn’t. A cousin had to travel by plane from Jonhsville, North Carolina and thus help him to move to Juanita’s house where her partner was also waiting for him, Roger, and the children of 19 Y 14 years.
“When he arrived I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t eat or go to the bathroom alone. We had to help him ”, remembers Juanita, who has covered all the expenses with her savings from work as a cleaner. Money for transfers, medicines and lawyers. “What worried me the most is that they would return him to Mexico and it would be worse there: that no one would attend to him and also this is where they beat him”
Attorney Delgado says that it is very difficult to determine how many cases of injuries have occurred in recent years related to run-ups by the Border Patrol because there are no Official figures in this regard, neither federal nor state.
It is known only through unofficial reports. On 2019 an investigation by the civil organization ProPublica and the Los Angeles Times documented that “while modern police agencies move away from high-speed pursuits, unless they are violent suspects, the US Border Patrol allows to its agents a wide freedom to catch undocumented persons. ”
He explained that, at speeds that experts consider to be very unsafe, agents they box in moving vehicles, puncture tires, and employ tactics aimed at causing cars to roll off the road, and thus every nine days these chases ended in a crash.
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On one occasion, one caused a fire. In another, a dozen passers-by and six immigrants were injured, including a six-year-old girl who was injured and required life support.
In recent times, the 16 last March , at least eight people were killed and three more injured in a massive vehicular accident involving undocumented migrants, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS).
The driver of a Dodge pickup truck was being pursued by DPS officers when he collided head-on with a Ford F – on the Val Verde County Freeway 1994, about 30 miles north of the border city of From the river.
One month after this incident, the 15 April, a man was killed in Texas when fleeing from a Border Patrol agent who had stopped the vehicle in which he was traveling approximately miles from the US-Mexico border, near San Manuel. When an officer ordered the vehicle to stop, several occupants got out of the vehicle and fled. One of them crossed the road and was fatally run over by a civilian vehicle. That same day, another man died in Border Patrol custody near Hebbronville, also in Texas.
At 15 days, a Honduran immigrant died in an accident that occurred near Kingsville when a group of agents guarded an area of high activity of migrant smuggling and discovered fresh tracks, possibly of undocumented people who were still walking in the area, which “was covered with grass extremely thick and tall interspersed with groves of taller vegetation. ”
During the inspection, done both in vehicles and on foot, Border Patrol agents found two groups of migrants who surrendered to the authorities, while a third group that was hiding in the grass emerged and alerted the officers that “another individual who had been hit by a vehicle.”
When the officers located This individual informed them “that he and another migrant were run over by the ICE patrol while they were buried next to each other in the grass,” according to the official statement.
Despite the recognition of some specific cases, lawyer Uriel Delgado suspects that there may be many others that are not reported. Run-ins or accidents against victims by the Border Patrol that are automatically returned to Mexico on the pretext that they are undocumented and thus not take letters in the matter, avoid responsibilities.
What’s next?
Juan Diego Badillo arrived at Anita Badillo’s house as a baby : he could barely move holding on to someone’s hand, could not sit or lie down without help. But with the passing of the days it has improved a lot. Currently you can do many movements with your hands, but you must accept that you will not be able to do sports as you liked so much.
Now he spends his time watching basketball and soccer on television and thinking about what he is going to do in the future with his lack of physical condition to work on what intended to do. “It depends on how I evolve, I must decide,” he warns.
Because his plans took a turn from 180 degrees. According to the calculations that he made in the town, by now he should be sending money in remittances to his parents who survive from the fields, from the scarce harvest of corn and beans and embroidery.
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Until before her arrival, Anita was the only one who supported with a monthly money transfer; From now on, that remittance will be complicated because it must cover r the cost of the brother’s legal battle of about 7, 000 dollars and her job as a cleaner, although it allows her to manage her schedules, does not give her a sufficient salary for so much outlay. “It’s very complicated,” he warns.
Attorney Delgado managed to transfer the case to the North Carolina courts, to a Charlotte court , where Juan Diego Badillo must go to give his statement. He has not yet done so because his physical condition prevented him from doing so, but when he improves with therapy, he will be able to do so.
The first step will be to apply for asylum. He is currently on parole with a humanitarian permit and must also wait 150 days to open your immigration case and thus initiate the procedures.
Another strategy is to sue the agent and the Border Patrol for abuse of force, but it requires another type of specialist lawyer to request it. “The State puts all its apparatus to defend itself against this and it takes a lot to confront it as happened with the case of George Floyd, the African American who suffocated a Minneapolis agent,” says Delgado.
However, the ideal for this Mexican family is for ICE to respond with financial compensation for the irreversible damage that he caused to Juan Diego with the fracture of the spine and left leg, two conditions that will prevent him from developing in the type of work that he knew how to do.
To the 20 years he will have to reinvent himself a life to reinvent himself, know where to go with the disability, where he can work, be able to be productive and help his parents.
That is why his future depends on the State recognizing that one of its agents broke much more than his spine, broke the wings of a young man who was looking for the American Dream and only had his body, as full, with all his physical strength.
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