Mexico to File Criminal Complaints Against Deaths in US Prisons

The Mexican government has said it will file criminal complaints in the United States following the deaths of more than a dozen of its citizens in US prisons.

Mexican Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco told reporters that the government would take “strong legal action” to protect the human rights of Mexican citizens in the United States.

He said 14 Mexicans and three others died during ICE’s “detention campaign” while in custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The incidents have not only sparked outrage in Mexico. More than a thousand people protested in Houston on Wednesday after an ICE officer shot and killed Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araujo a day earlier.

Salgado, 52, worked as a construction worker in the Houston area for three decades after coming to the U.S. as a legal resident, his son said.

Ronaldo Salgado told reporters that his father did not deserve to be reduced to the headlines of “Mexican man shot and killed by ICE.”

Lorenzo Salgado was shot by an ICE agent on his way to work, his family said.

“ICE law enforcement attempted to conduct a vehicle stop as part of an enforcement operation aimed at apprehending an illegal alien,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement on X.

In the description, ExternalDHS accused Salgado of “attempting to evade arrest.”

“According to information we are receiving, he rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle, refused to comply with multiple verbal commands, and attempted to run the vehicle over an ICE law enforcement officer, prompting our officers to fire their weapons in self-defense,” the statement said.