Mexico demands US, UN investigate ICE killings

MEXICO CITY (CN) — The Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs announced Tuesday that it initiated criminal complaints with the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. state prosecutors’ offices over the deaths of Mexican people in custody or during operations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, issued a cease-and-desist order to an ICE detention center and asked the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to investigate.

“These actions correspond to the investigation stage, a preliminary step essential for the exercise of legal actions that proceed in accordance with the law,” the agency said in a statement.

Seventeen Mexicans have died during President Donald Trump’s second term as a result of immigration operations: three in direct operations carried out by ICE officers and 14 in ICE detention facilities.

The complaint to the Justice Department will be filed through the Mexican embassy in the U.S. The complaints to state prosecutors’ offices were also filed through embassies in those states.

The Mexican government sent cease-and-desist letters to ICE detention centers where Mexicans have died. This includes the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California, a for-profit detention center operated by The GEO Group.

“The objective of these writings is to immediately cease the actions or omissions that resulted in these deaths, such as preventing access to prompt and expeditious medical care, as well as the application of policies incompatible with medical and prison standards. These writings constitute the first formal step for the possible filing of civil actions,” the agency said.

Four Mexicans have died at Adelanto. A coalition of legal advocates, including the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, filed a federal lawsuit against the processing center on Jan. 26 challenging inhumane conditions. The Mexican government announced its participation as amicus curiae in the suit.

Roberto Velasco Álvarez, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, also wrote a letter to Volker Türk, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, requesting his office collect information from the U.S. authorities to analyze international obligations and formulate recommendations and potentially recommend the case to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Despite the seriousness of the Mexican government’s legal actions, Ilan Katz, Mexico City-based criminal defense attorney and president of the Mexican Bar Foundation, said the Mexican government has little recourse in this situation.

“This is a case before the U.S. courts,” Katz said. “The Mexican consulate should provide legal assistance to the families of the victims against the government and the companies.”

He added that while a cease-and-desist order is not a legal action, the victims’ families can sue the ICE detention centers, though it would have to be completely before U.S. courts.

“The U.N. has no jurisdiction on this,” he said. “Nor does it seem that the U.S. will care if the U.N. says anything.”

The United Nations has no legal authority over any sovereign state and can only make diplomatic suggestions and warnings urging a government to act in a particular manner.

Despite the apparent lack of recourse, Katz said this shows Mexico’s willingness to stand up to the atrocities that are going on in the United States.

“I think that this is also diplomatic. You know, everything is political. So to put on a brave face before the U.S. government is probably, you know, in the midst of all that’s going on, a smart move,” he said.

On Tuesday, Trump ordered ICE to suspend traffic stops following two recent deaths: ICE officers shot and killed Colombian national Johan Sebastián Durán in Biddeford, Maine, on Monday while attempting to conduct a vehicle stop, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

On July 7, ICE officers shot and killed Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in what Homeland Security called a targeted enforcement operation while Salgado Araujo was driving his construction van to a Houston job site.

Later that day, U.S. Representative Sylvia Garcia of Houston confirmed that Salgado Araujo was not actually a target of the operation.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum commented on Salgado Araujo’s killing in her press conference on July 9 when announcing that her government would file criminal and civil cases against the U.S. government for what she classified as homicides.

“We cannot turn a blind eye to the Mexicans who have died in ICE operations or who were detained in these detention centers operated by private companies contracted by ICE,” she said.

On the same day, the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs issued a statement announcing it would do everything in its power to file formal complaints to the U.S. government.

The agency also announced the Mexican government sent 11 formal diplomatic notes of protest to the U.S. government to investigate the deaths of the 17 Mexican nationals killed during ICE immigration operations.