Tailgate does not open

it can be a couple of things, it may be a piece broke or needs to be lubed as it's not pulling the latch all the way open. you may have to get access to this by pulling inside panel off to see what is wrong. Here are diagrams to help us see what's going on below.

I took off the back panel and looked at pieces and did not see anything that looked broke. Here is what Im looking at?

your first pic didn't turn out but with the one i'm sending back check the two arrows to see if theya removing the latch. the top one may be the lock and also see if actuator -the thing with the rubber piece on it is moving it far enough. the lower rod should open the latch to open the door. but you will have to check actuator with door closed.

Don't want to necro a post, but I had the same issue with my Santa Fe, an older model. I removed the screws from the tailgate panel, sprayed the magical WD40 on the actuator inside the door (the moving parts that weren't moving), sprayed behind the handle, inside the handle, and then used a pair of pliers to manually pull the cable and release the latch. Once I had it open, I liberally applied (aka sprayed the hack out of) WD4 to the latch, using a screwdriver to close the latch and pliers on the cable to release the latch. Once it was working smoothly, and more importantly the outside handle was releasing all the way (protruding more than 1/4" from the tailgate), I closed the door and opened it several times. Problem solved.

Great addition to this thread! Please feel free to help out whenever you are on the site :)

Cheers, Ken