Massachusetts federal court admits Mexico’s lawsuit against U.S. arms companies

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A federal court in Massachusetts admitted the historic lawsuit filed by the Government of Mexico against US arms companies for arms trafficking, informed this Friday the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Marcelo Ebrard.

“The Federal Court in Massachusetts accepted the lawsuit filed by the Government of Mexico against various companies responsible for negligent trade of weapons used by crime here,” the foreign minister announced on social networks.

Read also: Check out our coverage on Mexico

In the same message, Erard described it as “a first big step” and detailed, “now comes the notification and the legal process.”

On August 4, the Mexican Foreign Ministry announced a historic lawsuit against a dozen US arms companies accusing them of carrying out negligent practices that facilitate arms trafficking and violence in Mexico.

The lawsuit, which could take several years to complete, was filed in federal court in Boston, Massachusetts, where the companies are based; the defendants are companies, not the US government.

With this, the Mexican authorities are seeking increased gun control in the United States but are also demanding financial compensation, which has not yet been calculated.

The Mexican government estimates that more than half a million weapons are trafficked each year from the United States to Mexico and are responsible for 17,000 homicides per year, at the cost of between 1.5% and 2% of Mexico’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Mexico began preparing this lawsuit two years ago, following the massacre against Latinos perpetrated by Patrick Crusius on August 3, 2019, in the border city of El Paso (Texas), where 23 people died, 9 of whom were Mexican.