Mexico to file criminal complaints over deaths in US custody

The Mexican government says it will file criminal complaints in the United States over the deaths of more than a dozen of its citizens in US custody.

Mexican Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco told journalists that the government would take “forceful legal action” to protect the human rights of Mexican citizens in the US.

He said that 14 Mexicans had died while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and another three during ICE “arrest operations”.

The incidents have not just caused outrage in Mexico. On Wednesday, more than a thousand people protested in Houston, where an ICE officer had shot dead Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araujo the day before.

Salgado, 52, had been working as a builder for three decades in the Houston area after coming to the US as an undocumented migrant, his son said.

Ronaldo Salgado told journalists that his father “did not deserve to be reduced to a headline of ‘Mexican man shot and killed by ICE’”.

His family said Lorenzo Salgado had been on his way to work when he was shot by an ICE agent.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement published on X, that “ICE law enforcement attempted to conduct a vehicle stop as part of a targeted enforcement operation to arrest an illegal alien”.

In the statement, external, DHS alleged that Salgado had “attempted to evade arrest”.

“From information we are receiving, he rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle, refused to follow multiple verbal commands, and weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer resulting in our officer firing his weapon in self-defence,” the statement reads.