The aunt of the woman shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent last week after crossing the border illegally near Laredo, Tex., has a message for the United States: “Don’t treat us like animals.”

The aunt, Dominga Vicente, spoke at a news conference on Friday, the same day the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Guatemala identified her niece, Claudia Patricia Gómez González, 19, of San Juan Ostuncalco, Guatemala, as the victim of the shooting.

“This is not the first person dying in the United States,” Ms. Vicente said at the news conference in Guatemala City. “There are many people that have been treated like animals and that isn’t what we should do as people.”

Ms. Vicente said her niece had left Guatemala “out of necessity” to try to earn money in the United States. Ms. Gómez had studied accounting but was unable to find a job in Guatemala, according to the Guatemalan television station Guatevisión.