Following the wrongful imprisonment of their two US-citizen children at the US-Mexico border, a family was granted a $1.5 million award.
In his decision in the civil complaint on Friday, US District Judge Gonzalo Curiel gave $250,000 to the mother of the children, $175,000 to the boy, and $1.1 million to the girl.
On March 18, 2019, nine-year-old Julia and her fourteen-year-old brother Oscar were taken into custody while traveling from their Tijuana, Mexico, home to the US on a daily basis for school.
The children are citizens of the United States and were born there; their last names were not disclosed in court records. Court filings state that their mother, Thelma Medina Navarro, is a citizen of Mexico and has a temporary US border-crossing card.
US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers stopped Julia and her two family friends as they sought to cross the border at the San Ysidro point of entry, which is close to San Diego. They reasoned that Julia didn’t look like the person in her passport.
According to the court, she was then led into a room and questioned by a lone Customs and Border Patrol agent, in violation of protocol that calls for the presence of a second witness while questioning a youngster.
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Because Julia was forced to admit under false pretenses that she was her cousin in the questioning room, authorities suspected that she and Oscar might have been involved in identity theft and smuggling.
During the verdict on Friday, Judge Curiel noted, “The United States does not offer a coherent explanation as to why Julia would falsely confess that she was her cousin. Since the confession was not recorded, witnessed or even recounted in any written detail, it will never be known why a 9-year-old U.S. citizen falsely confessed to being someone she is not.”
Following many rounds of questioning, the kids were split up and kept in different cells in the Admissibility Enforcement Unit of the border crossing; Oscar spent 14 hours and Julia spent 34 hours there.
Following pressure from the Mexican embassy and interviews with the media by the children’s mother, Thelma Medina Navarro, the Border Patrol eventually freed the children.
According to court filings, Julia had nightmares and insomnia as a result of the incident, and she required treatment after being freed.
