Mexico’s Sheinbaum announces criminal charges request in US over ICE deaths

Mexico has said that it will request that criminal charges be filed in United States courts after more than a dozen of its citizens were killed by US immigration authorities or died in their custody.

On Monday, President Claudia Sheinbaum announced that the requests were being formally lodged with US prosecutors, days after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot and killed Mexican citizen Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during a raid in Houston on July 7.

Salgado is the 17th Mexican national to have died during such raids or while held in the custody of immigration authorities since President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year.

“This is not just a matter for the Mexican government,” Sheinbaum said during her daily presser. “I call on all political parties, everyone, all of Mexican society, to show solidarity with our fellow citizens in the United States. I don’t think anyone approves of this situation.”

Sheinbaum emphasised that while Mexico was not seeking to create conflict with the US, it should not remain silent about the deaths of its citizens to preserve the country’s relationship with the Trump administration.

“We must raise our voices when there are human rights violations against our fellow citizens.”

Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs Roberto Velasco announced on Thursday that the government was planning to request criminal charges in the US.

The requests are Mexico’s toughest action yet over deaths tied to Trump’s immigration deportation drive. Mexican officials have described some of the deaths as homicides, and letters of protest to Washington have produced no results.

But the complaints also land at a tense moment between the two neighbours. Since returning to office, Trump has used tariffs to squeeze Mexico’s economy, refused to renew the two nations’ most consequential trade deal, and has put Sheinbaum in an awkward situation by authorising direct CIA intervention against Mexico’s drug cartels.

Even so, Sheinbaum has avoided open confrontation, collaborating closely with Washington on drug trafficking and migration while insisting on Mexican sovereignty. That mix of cooperation and defiance has lifted her approval rating at home to about 68 percent.