The government of Mexico on Tuesday announced that the government has initiated several criminal complaints in response to the deaths of Mexican immigrants in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). President Claudia ​Sheinbaum’s administration has begun filing complaints with US state prosecutors through the Mexican Embassy, and sending cease-and-desist letters to US detention centers where Mexican nationals have died.

The head of Mexico’s Secretariat of Foreign Relations (SRE), Roberto Velasco Alvarez, also sent a communication to United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk. Additionally, the Sheinbaum administration plans to file a complaint with the US Department of Justice. 

The SRE has not provided further details about the criminal complaints, but said that the first letter was addressed to the Adelanto Detention Center in California, where four Mexican nationals, including José Guadalupe Ramos Solano, have died. The letters identify lack of “access to timely and efficient medical care,” and sub-standard medical policies as reasons for the deaths and request their “immediate cessation.” The UN communication requests an investigation of the deaths and analysis of “the compatibility of these events with international obligations.”

While at least 17 Mexican immigrants have died in ICE custody or during ICE operations, the most recent was that of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, a 35-year US resident. Araujo died on July 7, 2026 after being shot by an ICE agent in Houston. US authorities maintain that Araujo was evading arrest by attempting to run over an ICE agent, while his family believes he was unknowingly followed on his way to work and then killed. He had no criminal record. After Araujo’s death, President Sheinbaum issued a statement foreshadowing Tuesday’s filings. “Their pain is shared by the nation,” she stated.

The 17 deaths occurred in Georgia, Texas, Arizona, California, Missouri, Florida, Illinois and Louisiana, with Texas, California and Arizona being the states with the highest Mexican immigrant population. As of 2023, a total of 10.9 million Mexicans had immigrated to the US, representing 23% of the 47.8 million foreign-born US residents.

Despite the prevalence of Mexican immigrants, US-Mexico relations remain marked by issues such as “security, migration, and trade,” according to José Luis Valdés Ugalde, academic at the Center for Research on North America at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He stated that the 17 deaths affect the  “bilateral relationship and the pending issues that Mexico and the United States have before them.” On July 1, the US announced its refusal to renew a trade deal which Mexico desired to maintain.

UNAM professor Tomás Milton Muñoz Bravo looks to November US midterm elections in hopes that the Republicans will lose their majority, giving way to “checks and balances” that will “allow for room to negotiate with other actors in the United States.”

Muñoz hopes both countries will change course; Mexico with regard to its history of not knowing “how to defend the migrant community,” and the US regarding a show of concern for Mexico’s actions in support of Mexican immigrants.