The Mexican government is using lawyers to block ICE’s repatriation of migrant Mexicans back to Mexico, according to Reuters.
The news service reported:
Mexico has begun filing criminal complaints with state prosecutors in the United States over the deaths of its citizens in U.S. immigration custody and during enforcement operations, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
Mexico’s government has also sent cease-and-desist letters to U.S. detention centers where Mexican nationals have died, the ministry added in a statement.
“I don’t think this situation appears acceptable to anyone,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Monday. “This is an issue for all Mexicans,” she said, portraying the legal intervention as a nationalist cause for Mexicans.
Mexico’s government is also asking the United Nations to investigate U.S. deportation operations following the recent deaths of 17 Mexicans during the deportation process.
Mexico’s intervention in the U.S. immigration system comes after decades in which the huge population of Mexicans in the United States has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans via drug trafficking, drunk driving, murder, and other crimes. In January, for example, Mexican national Kenneth Moreno Guzman was arrested by police in Georgia for allegedly raping an 11-year-old girl.
In 2025, roughly 70,000 Americans were killed by drug overdoses, mostly due to drugs smuggled from Mexico. Many others were crippled by the drugs, often while being ignored by local governments that are eager to welcome illegal migrants.
Roughly 37 million Hispanics of Mexican origin lived in the United States in 2021, according to a 2023 study by Pew Research Center. That vast population was quietly welcomed by the U.S. establishment because it spikes consumer sales, pushes up real estate prices, and forces down Americans’ wages.
The movement of Mexicans into the United States is also extremely profitable to Mexico. The migration northwards reduces pressure on the government to create jobs and fund welfare programs, and it also causes a huge flow of remittances back into Mexico. In 2025, the Mexican economy was boosted by $62 billion in remittances from the United States.
Yet the Mexican government is justifying the intervention following the death of 17 Mexican illegal migrants in U.S custody, according to Reuters.
The Mexican escalation comes after President Donald Trump stopped illegal migration and reduced drug inflows, pressured Mexico to suppress its drug cartels, and stopped plans to extend the U.S.-Canada free trade policy.