Claudia Patricia Gómez, 20, was shot in the head after her group was confronted by a Border Patrol agent in Texas.

Handout / Guatemala Consulate

The ACLU of Texas on Thursday filed a $100 million claim for damages against the US government on behalf of the family of a 20-year-old Guatemalan woman who was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent in 2018. The claim, which is typically a precursor to a lawsuit, is for personal injury and wrongful death and accuses the federal government of battery, negligence, and reckless conduct in the Border Patrol shooting of Claudia Patricia Gómez González, an indigenous Mayan woman. The Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, and Border Patrol are all named as parties in the claim, which was filed on the anniversary Gómez's death. CBP said the agency doesn't comment on pending litigation. "The government should acknowledge this was a miscarriage of justice and should attempt to make amends with the family," Andre Segura, legal director for the ACLU of Texas, told BuzzFeed News. According the complaint and her family, Gómez was an honors student who couldn't find a job in Guatemala or afford college, and was hoping to find a job in the US and become an accountant. Just 15 days after leaving her home on the outskirts of Quetzaltenango, a city that sits near the foot of a volcano, she crossed the Rio Grande in the hopes of finding a better life in the US. Shortly after noon on May 23, 2018, Gómez was walking one-third of a mile from the river with a group of migrants in Rio Bravo, a Texas border hamlet, when they encountered a Border Patrol agent while waiting in a vacant lot. That's when the accounts start to differ between the Border Patrol agent and witnesses. CBP initially said "that as the agent attempted to apprehend the group, he came under attack by multiple subjects using blunt objects."

Johan Ordonez / AFP / Getty Images Women carry the coffin of Claudia Gomez.

In a follow-up statement two days later, CBP said only that the agent, a 15-year veteran of the Border Patrol, was "allegedly assaulted" and "rushed," but there was no mention of any blunt objects.

"According to the agent, the group ignored his verbal commands [to get on the ground] and instead rushed him," the second statement read. In the initial statement, Gómez was described as "one of the assailants" who attacked the agent with blunt objects before he shot her. But in the second statement, she was only described as a member of the group. Thursday's complaint from the ACLU of Texas said that when the Border Patrol agent approached them two people ran back toward the river, two others ran inside an abandoned mobile home to hide, and Gómez and another person stayed in the vacant lot. "The agent drew his weapon. When Claudia took a step, the agent aimed at her, pulled the trigger, and shot her in the head," the claim states. "Claudia fell to the ground, face down." The agent then chased the two men, who hid in the mobile home, and soon after other Border Patrol agents arrived at the scene, the claim states. Another Border Patrol agent turned her over. In an unpublished video reported by BuzzFeed News that was taken by Marta Martínez, who lived nearby, the camera points to Gómez's body as another agent flips her over, blood covering her face.

Handout / Guatemala Consulate