It can be opened but a bit of a pain. Chances are it's stuck and not broken.
You need to do this from the inside of the vehicle. First step is to remove the entire plastic trim that covers the inside of the hatch and glass. To do that you need to remove the handle (passenger side) that you use to close the hatch, if you have the third row seat the two screws can be better reached by removing the cover that covers the jack. After that start prying the trim from the hatch, I started from the upper edges. They are tight but go slowly. You may need a long screwdriver to reach some of the clips. There are two that can be easily missed. If you look at the lower panel (the larger portion) about halfway between the bottom edge and the bottom edge of the glass opening there will be a clip that is approximately 18" from the outer edge on both the driver side and passenger side. Once all clip have been disengaged you can remove the trim panel place it out of the way. Remove water shield and reach all the way down the hatch and you can push the release to pop open hatch. You can see where the cable attaches and this is the release. Once you do this clean and lube the latch assembly and all will be fine. I didn't have to remove the latch assembly. Verify it's working multiple times before reassembly.
Moral of this job is to lube the latch assembly once in awhile to avoid having to do this job in the first place and to prevent from having to do it a second time.
The main thing is go slowly and try to look for the clips and pop them loose. I managed to break only one. If my memory serves me right there were 14-16 clips and that includes the ones on the sides that retains the skinny part of the trim that surrounds the glass opening.
