The Mexican government says it will file criminal complaints in the United States over the deaths of more than a dozen of its citizens in US custody.

Mexican Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco told journalists that the government would take “forceful legal action” to protect the human rights of Mexican citizens in the US.

He said that 14 Mexicans had died while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and another three during ICE “arrest operations”.

The incidents have not just caused outrage in Mexico. On Wednesday, more than a thousand people protested in Houston, where an ICE officer had shot dead Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araujo the day before.

Salgado, 52, had been working as a builder for three decades in the Houston area after coming to the US as an undocumented migrant, his son said.

Ronaldo Salgado told journalists that his father “did not deserve to be reduced to a headline of ‘Mexican man shot and killed by ICE'”.

His family said Lorenzo Salgado had been on his way to work when he was shot by an ICE agent.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement published on X, that “ICE law enforcement attempted to conduct a vehicle stop as part of a targeted enforcement operation to arrest an illegal alien”.

In the statement, external, DHS alleged that Salgado had “attempted to evade arrest”.

“From information we are receiving, he rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle, refused to follow multiple verbal commands, and weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer resulting in our officer firing his weapon in self-defence,” the statement reads.

Four members of the US Congress have demanded a fully independent and transparent investigation into Salgado’s death.

The four Democratic lawmakers wrote in a letter to the DHS, external that Tuesday’s incident was “not the first time ICE agents have used unnecessary, deadly force”.

They urged the secretary of Homeland Security to not forget the cases of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two US citizens killed by federal agents in Minneapolis in January, sparking nationwide protests.

Referring to Salgado’s shooting on Tuesday, the Democrats wrote that “instead of answers and accountability, DHS and ICE released a statement echoing the same stories we have heard before, claiming an evasion of arrest, weaponisation of a vehicle, and that the fatal shooting was a result of self-defense”.

Since the fatal shooting of Salgado, the Mexican government has been expressing its frustration with the Trump administration.

President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Wednesday that it was time to “go further than diplomatic notes”.

Velasco said that he had been instructed directly by Sheinbaum to file the complaints and that their aim was to have the deaths of Mexicans in ICE custody or operations investigated “as criminal matters”.

According to the minister, the Mexican government also plans to launch civil cases against companies which manage US detentions centres where 14 of its nationals died.