FBI Investigates Border Patrol Agent’s Shooting of Boy : Immigration: Mexican officials say the youth was on a border fence when hit. He is at least the fifth alien wounded by U.S. authorities this year near the crossing.

The FBI is investigating the shooting by a U.S. Border Patrol agent of a 15-year-old Mexican youth who Mexican authorities say was halfway across a border fence when he was shot.

The shooting occurred early Sunday morning about a block and a half east of the international port of entry at Calexico, along the border of Mexico and Imperial County.

“Half of his body was in the United States and half was in Mexico,” said Marco Antonio Tovar, the Mexican consul in Calexico. “This is a very unfortunate incident, and we have asked for a full and exhaustive investigation.”

Ron Orrantia, an FBI spokesman in San Diego, confirmed the investigation Wednesday but declined to elaborate.

The boy, identified as Eduardo Garcia Zamores of Mexicali, apparently fell on the Mexicali side of the border and was transported to a hospital there, where he was in critical condition with bullet wounds in his liver, stomach and right lung, Tovar said.

The Border Patrol has declined to release details of the shooting, offer a motive or name the agent who fired at the youth. The agent has, however, been temporarily reassigned to desk duties, pending the outcome of investigations by the FBI, Calexico police and Baja California State Judicial Police, according to Manuel Cazares, deputy chief Border Patrol agent in El Centro.

The youth is at least the fifth foreign national shot by U.S. Border Patrol agents along the California-Mexico border this year.

The FBI also is investigating a Sept. 8 shooting in San Diego, in which three witnesses told Mexican authorities in sworn statements that a Border Patrol agent dragged 17-year-old Victor Adrian Mandujano from the border fence and shot him in the heart, killing him. His family in Mexico has filed a $30-million wrongful-death claim against the Border Patrol. Border Patrol officials in San Diego said the agent shot in self-defense after the suspect attacked him and grabbed his gun.

Almost six months after a U.S. Border Patrol agent fired his revolver into a van loaded with undocumented immigrants, federal prosecutors are still reviewing that case to determine whether the officer violated the civil rights of two passengers who were wounded.

“It’s still an open matter,” said Obern Rainey, a spokeswoman in Washington for the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Francisco Ricardo Carbajal, a 16-year-old Mexican who was shot twice in the head during the incident, has filed a $1-million civil claim against the Border Patrol, contending the agent acted “negligently and carelessly,” said his lawyer, Michael D. Padilla of San Diego.

The incident occurred along the eastern shoulder of the northbound lanes of Interstate 5 in Chula Vista, about six miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.