In a significant diplomatic escalation, Mexico has begun formally calling on U.S. state attorneys general to open criminal investigations into the deaths of Mexican nationals who perished while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody or during enforcement actions, the country's foreign ministry announced Tuesday.
The move comes after a 52-year-old Mexican man with no criminal history — who had spent 35 years living in the United States — was fatally shot by an ICE agent while transporting his construction crew to a worksite in Houston. The Department of Homeland Security, which has authority over ICE, maintained that the man had struck an agency vehicle and that the agent discharged a weapon in self-defense. His killing drew street protests in Houston and prompted Democratic lawmakers and the victim's relatives to call for an independent inquiry.
Since President Donald Trump began his second term, 17 Mexican nationals have lost their lives connected to immigration enforcement — 14 of them while held in ICE detention facilities and three during active operations, the foreign ministry reported.
Beyond the outreach to state prosecutors, Mexico's foreign ministry said it intends to send a parallel request to the U.S. Department of Justice, though Washington faces no legal obligation to act on either appeal.
Separately, the Mexican government has begun dispatching letters directly to U.S. detention facilities where its citizens died. The correspondence demands that those centers "immediately cease the actions or omissions that resulted in these deaths, such as preventing access to prompt and expedited medical care, as well as the application of policies incompatible with medical and penitentiary standards." The Adelanto detention center in California — where four Mexican immigrants died — was the first to receive such a letter.
According to the ministry, the letters represent an initial move toward "the eventual filing of civil lawsuits" against the private companies running those facilities, aimed at halting what Mexico characterizes as human rights abuses.
Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco Álvarez had telegraphed the strategy last week, stating publicly that Mexico would take its grievances straight to American authorities and seek criminal accountability in cases involving Mexicans killed in ICE custody or operations. He also wrote to Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, urging U.S. authorities to document the circumstances surrounding each death and assess the "compatibility of these events with international human rights obligations." Velasco Álvarez additionally asked Türk to solicit a formal opinion from the Human Rights Council and issue recommendations on the cases.
The flurry of actions reflects a hardening posture by President Claudia Sheinbaum toward Trump's immigration enforcement campaign. Earlier this year she directed Mexican consulates throughout the United States to conduct regular check-ins with detained Mexican nationals, and her administration had alrEADy lodged a separate complaint with Türk over the treatment of its citizens.
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