Mexico’s government said Thursday it will file criminal complaints with U.S. prosecutors over the deaths of 17 of its citizens in the custody of or during arrest operations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, days after an ICE officer fatally shot a Houston construction worker.
Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco told reporters that 14 Mexicans had died in ICE custody and three more during ICE arrest operations, including this week’s shooting in Houston. President Claudia Sheinbaum had directed him to take “forceful legal action,” Velasco said, with complaints going to state prosecutors and the U.S. Department of Justice seeking criminal investigations into each death. Mexico also plans separate civil suits against the companies that operate the U.S. detention facilities where the 14 died, including a lockup in Adelanto, California, where four Mexican nationals have died.
“We cannot allow the mistreatment of our brothers and sisters,” Sheinbaum told reporters Wednesday, adding that her government intended to go beyond the diplomatic notes and human rights complaints it has already lodged with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
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The announcement followed the shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, a Mexican national who had lived in Houston for more than three decades. ICE officers tried to stop his van around 6:50 a.m. Tuesday in the 6800 block of Canal Street, in the heavily Latino Magnolia Park neighborhood, as part of what the Department of Homeland Security called a targeted enforcement operation. DHS said agents had surveilled the address for weeks and recognized a van matching the suspect’s description.
DHS alleged that Salgado Araujo “rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle, refused to follow multiple verbal commands, and weaponized his vehicle” before an officer shot him in self-defense. The department did not release evidence supporting the account. Salgado Araujo was shot on the right side of his body; video obtained by local television station KPRC showed medics arriving at the scene less than 10 minutes later. He died after being taken to a hospital, and the Harris County Medical Examiner ruled his death a homicide.
Salgado Araujo’s death is at least the eighth tied to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign, according to tallies compiled by news organizations tracking fatal encounters with federal agents.
Salgado Araujo’s family said he had no criminal record and had been close to completing the legal process for a work permit. He ran a homebuilding business employing dozens of workers and was driving to pick up his crew when he was stopped, his son Ronaldo Salgado said. Salgado Araujo and his wife had met as teenagers in Mexico before moving to Houston, where they raised three sons — one now a teacher, one an engineer and the third studying engineering in college, according to Ronaldo Salgado.
“He did not deserve to be reduced to a headline,” Ronaldo Salgado told reporters Wednesday, standing beside his brother at a news conference in Houston.
More than 1,000 people protested in Houston on Wednesday, and mourners held a candlelight vigil for Salgado Araujo the same night. Democratic Rep. Sylvia Garcia of Texas, who appeared with the family, said Salgado Araujo had no criminal history and that DHS had released only “allegations,” not evidence. Garcia said federal investigators had separately told her Salgado Araujo was not the person ICE set out to arrest that morning.
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DHS’s inspector general and the FBI’s Houston field office are separately investigating the shooting, the department said, the latter examining the alleged assault on the officer. Harris County’s district attorney said federal authorities had excluded local investigators from the probe.
Four Democratic members of Congress wrote to DHS this week demanding an independent and transparent investigation, arguing the shooting was “not the first time ICE agents have used unnecessary, deadly force.” The lawmakers pointed to the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two U.S. citizens killed by federal agents in Minneapolis in January that set off nationwide protests, and said DHS’s response to Salgado Araujo’s death echoed the same justifications used then. The League of United Latin American Citizens made a similar comparison, saying ICE’s account of the Houston shooting closely tracked its account of the Minneapolis deaths.
Velasco said the criminal complaints, once filed, will name whoever U.S. authorities determine is responsible for each death.