Mexico City.- Mexico has received a response from U.S. authorities to only four of the 20 complaints it filed to clarify the deaths of 17 nationals during immigration operations or while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), while it continues to await a reaction in the remaining cases, Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco reported this Wednesday.
Of the responses received, the district attorney’s offices of Ventura (California), Cook (Illinois), and Harris (Texas) counties reported that they will begin to evaluate possible actions in the corresponding cases, while a Florida district attorney’s office ruled out conducting an additional investigation.
In this latter case, Velasco explained that the prosecutor communicated that he agreed with the ICE investigation, which concluded that the person took their own life, “so they will not conduct an additional investigation.”
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Mexico filed a total of 20 complaints for the 17 deaths, eight with state prosecutor’s offices and 12 with district prosecutor’s offices, in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Missouri, and Texas, amid the tightening of immigration policies and detention operations in the United States.
“It is obviously a very painful subject for the Government of Mexico, obviously for the families of these people who have lost their lives and which is naturally a priority for the Foreign Ministry to address,” stated Velasco during the daily presidential conference.
The foreign minister announced that the Mexican Embassy and the consular network will directly contact the prosecutor’s offices that have not yet responded to the complaints.
“In the other cases (…) we are naturally following up, waiting to see what decisions will be made by each of the prosecutor’s offices where these complaints have been filed,” he pointed out.
In addition to the local complaints, the Mexican Attorney General’s Office (FGR) requested in July that the U.S. Department of Justice open an investigation into the deaths.
Seeking to protect their citizens from abuses committed by ICE
The Mexican government has also raised its concerns directly with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE, while Velasco stated that he himself has discussed the matter on several occasions with the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ronald Johnson.
The foreign minister stressed that Mexico is promoting these actions “not with the aim of generating a conflict with the United States Government,” but as part of its obligation to protect its citizens.
Mexican pressure has also reached the United Nations. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights responded to a petition sent by Mexico in July, expressed concern about the situation, and forwarded the information to the Human Rights Council, according to Velasco.
Furthermore, he called on U.S. authorities to conduct prompt investigations and guarantee the rights of the victims.
Mexico also plans to continue its outreach with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). “Defending the human rights of migrants in Mexico is a priority,” concluded Velasco.
President Donald Trump’s administration has intensified its immigration operations to reach the goal of 2,000 arrests per day. Since January 2025, there have also been at least 30 incidents in which ICE agents fired at civilians.
In recent months, the controversy surrounding ICE has focused on two fatal shootings of two migrants, the Mexican Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and the Colombian Johan Durán, which occurred after traffic stops in Texas and Maine, respectively.
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In light of the increase in these incidents, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called in June for an “independent” investigation into deaths linked to migration operations and criticized the “lack of transparency” of U.S. authorities.
