A government attorney argued Friday that the mother of a 16-year-old Mexican boy killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in a cross border shooting should not be allowed to sue the agent because the boy lacked significant ties to the United States.

But a lawyer for the mother countered that the boy's grandmother cared for him while she was a legal permanent U.S. resident.

The arguments before a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco stem from the October 2012 shooting of Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez by Border Patrol agent Lonnie Swartz, who opened fire from Arizona and hit Elena Rodriguez in Mexico.