The Texas National Guard soldier who reportedly shot across the border in El Paso last week – wounding a Mexican national – has been suspended, Mexico’s president claims.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Thursday that he received a report on the soldier’s suspension, without specifying which agency it came from, according to The Associated Press.
López Obrador, who called the shooting on Aug. 26 a “violation of international law,” also said the soldier shot the Mexican man in defense of a migrant who the man was allegedly seeking to harm, and the soldier fired first into the air.
The Texas National Guard and Department of Public Safety did not immediately respond Friday morning to requests for comment from Fox News Digital.
National Guard soldiers place a barbed wire wall on the banks of the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas, across from Juarez, Mexico, on March 8, 2023. (Herika Martinez/AFP/Getty Images)
The identity of the soldier has not been made public.
U.S. officials, who remained anonymous, previously told The Washington Post that the guardsmen by El Paso, Texas, opened fire toward Juarez, Mexico, after allegedly spotting three men on the other side of the border attacking a group of migrants with a knife as they attempted to cross the river.
The guardsman involved was a part of Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, which has bolstered the presence along the border.
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Texas Army National Guard members walks by the border. (Texas Military Department )
“One of the bandits was trying to stab the migrants, and that’s when the National Guard fired,” an unnamed official told the Post.
Border Network for Human Rights, an El Paso-based advocacy group, told the New York Daily News that the person shot claimed he had been “practicing sports near the border while a group of migrants was crossing” before the shooting unfolded. That person was taken to a local hospital in Juarez and has since been released, according to the newspaper.
National Guard soldiers monitor the banks of the Rio Grande on the border between El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico, on Dec. 28, 2022. (Herika Martinez/AFP/Getty Images)
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“On the night of 26 August, a National Guard Servicemember assigned to Operation Lone Star discharged a weapon in a border-related incident,” the Texas Military Department said in a brief statement to KVIA. “The incident is under investigation. More information will be made available as the investigation progresses.”
Fox News’ Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
