Posted on 05/23/2003 6:41:49 AM PDT by boris
Mexican victims' kin threaten U.S. lawsuit
By Associated Press
MEXICO CITY -- The bodies of 11 of 19 illegal migrants who died after being locked in a sweltering truck trailer in South Texas arrived in Mexico City late Thursday, as anger mounted and some victims' relatives threatened to sue the United States over the deaths.
Mexican air force personnel unloaded the white and brown metal coffins, which were wrapped in cardboard containers, from the cargo ramp of a C-130 Hercules transport plane that landed at Mexico City's international airport.
The somber arrival of bodies came as relatives of two of the victims said they had hired lawyers to sue the U.S. government for $1 million for wrongful death and policies that violated the human rights of Jose Antonio Villasenor and his 5-year-old son, Marco Antonio, who lived in a Mexico City suburb.
Both died in the trailer, which was discovered by authorities at a truck stop outside Victoria, Texas, on May 14.
"Conditions for immigrants, the humiliations and harassment against them, are massive, grave and unacceptable human-rights violations," said Jose Antonio's cousin, 33-year-old Salvador Villasenor.
Villasenor spoke to reporters outside a Mexico City chapel where family members gathered to hug one another and sing religious songs around Jose Antonio's casket, which was surrounded by white and red flowers and candles.
The tiny body of Marco Antonio was being viewed by other family members in a funeral home in another part of the Mexican capital.
Villasenor said the suit would probably be filed under the statutes of an International Labor Organization convention on workers' and immigrants' rights.
He also said the family planned to allege negligence on the part of U.S. authorities because a Texas dispatcher fielding an emergency cellular phone call from one of the trapped migrants in Spanish was unable to understand it. By the time she found someone to translate, the call had been lost.
"How is it possible that a police operator in a country of (millions) of Hispanics doesn't speak a word of Spanish?" he asked.
Earlier Thursday, a source close to the family said it was considering suing the United States and Mexico, but Salvador Villasenor said the blame for the tragedy lay solely with the United States' unfair migration policies.
Can anyone find the missing word in the above sentence? How about the word "illegal"? Whew. Let them bring on the lawsuit. That may push our representatives to be more explicit about the significance of "illegal immigration" vs "legal immigration."
How is is possible that someone trying to use the phone system in a country, where the vast majority speaks English, has no English? I'm sure I'd like to have the 9-1-1 operators speak everything from Arabic to Urdu conversationally but the money that could be used for that training goes to support services for illegal aliens.
Um, maybe I'm missing something here. They were "illegal" immigrants, and the U.S. government had nothing to do with their illegal efforts.
"Conditions for immigrants, the humiliations and harassment against them, are massive, grave and unacceptable human-rights violations," said Jose Antonio's cousin, 33-year-old Salvador Villasenor.
Oh, now they're immigrants, as in "legal".
He also said the family planned to allege negligence on the part of U.S. authorities because a Texas dispatcher fielding an emergency cellular phone call from one of the trapped migrants in Spanish was unable to understand it. By the time she found someone to translate, the call had been lost.
"How is it possible that a police operator in a country of (millions) of Hispanics doesn't speak a word of Spanish?" he asked.
Maybe because most Americans speak English? IOW, it's time to cut out the B.S., these are illegal immigrants sneaking into another country and abusing it's sovereignity. Criminy, they have NO rights because they're breaking American law sneaking in, and now it's even demanded that we protect them, speaking their language, while they're breaking our laws.
Is this not the most outrageous statement you've every read? STAY THE HELL IN MEXICO!!!! I hear there's no harassment or humiliation there.
But that is not exactly true. They are technically illegal but the govt does nothing to stop their efforts in fact it encourages this and the illegals know that they will be welcomed. I actually think the govt does deserve to be sued for ignoring the will of the American people and the constitution and our rule of law. I dont know about you but I dont like corpses lying around the desert.
Or we could do what some amazingly stupid people have suggested and officially tell the 3rd world that we now have open borders.
Under what legal theory are the relatives of these criminals liable for their crimes?
If your brother robs a bank are you responsible for restitution?
I can't argue with that. The dirty little not-so-secret is that our government turns it head and allows illegals to pour across the borders, while still touting "Homeland Security".
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