What is the current state of the law in relation to the prosecution of a defendant in the Mendez-Rodriguez case?

Subsequent cases have refined the Mendez-Rodriguez requirements. Those requirements were distilled in United States v. Martinez-Morales, 632 F.2d 112, 114-115 (9th Cir. 1980) (citations omitted) as follows:

The facts and factors underlying Mendez-Rodriguez were set out in United States v. McQuillan, 507 F.2d 30, 32-33 (9th Cir. 1974): (1) the then policy of the United States in alien smuggling cases of keeping select alien eyewitnesses while returning others to Mexico without affording the defense an opportunity to interview them and ascertain whether any would be able to give testimony favorable to the defendant; (2) the absence of any question that the aliens returned were in fact eyewitnesses to and active participants in the crime; (3) the defendant's defense theory that might have been corroborated by the missing witnesses; and (4) the strong probability that the missing witnesses could have provided material and relevant information concerning the events constituting the crime.