Mexico has begun taking legal action to seek accountability for the deaths of 17 Mexican nationals who have died during U.S.Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations — 14 died in ICE custody, and three were killed during other “arrest operations.” This includes Silverio Villegas González, who was shot and killed by an ICE agent during a traffic stop in Franklin Park nearly a year ago.
Villegas González had lived in the United States since 2007. He was the father of two young children.
At the time, the federal Department of Homeland Security said Villegas González had fled a traffic stop and dragged an ICE agent “a significant distance with his car,” seriously injuring the agent. But Franklin Park police body-camera video footage obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times cast doubt on DHS’s description of what happened, catching the ICE agent saying his injuries were “nothing major,” a “knee injury” and “some lacerations” to his hands.
Mexico’s announcement came days after an ICE agent fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during a traffic stop in Houston on July 7. The Department of Homeland Security says Salgado Araujo was not the person agents were looking for.
Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum has referred to these deaths as “homicides.” As she called for more accountability at a news conference announcing steps her government was taking, Sheinbaum said Mexico “cannot turn a blind eye to the Mexicans who have died.
“We are going to do everything within our power,” Sheinbaum said. “What we cannot do is stand by as Mexicans die in ICE operations or detention.”
Mexico’s effort has three tracks. Mexico has filed criminal complaints with state and county prosecutors in Illinois and elsewhere, and it plans to submit a complaint to the U.S. Department of Justice, seeking independent investigations into the deaths. The Mexican government also issued cease- and-desist letters directing U.S. detention centers to preserve records and called for a formal review by the United Nations Human Rights Council.
It will be up to U.S. officials to decide whether to investigate or file charges.
Legal experts and immigration advocates say it’s unclear whether U.S. authorities will cooperate with an investigation but that the process still could put political pressure on the United States to take action and potentially yield evidence that could be used for civil lawsuits.
Can Mexico force the U.S. to investigate?
Mexico can’t compel the United States to investigate or collect evidence, experts say.
Mexico already is encountering resistance from U.S. officials. Earlier this week, Mexico said the State Department returned a cease-and-desist letter it sent regarding four Mexican citizens who died earlier this year at the Adelanto detention center in San Bernardino County.
For any sort of investigation into individual deaths, U.S. prosecutors could determine whether there is a basis to investigate, decline to open an investigation or later decide not to file charges in any of these cases, says Ilan Katz, a Mexico-based criminal defense lawyer who is president of the Mexican Bar Foundation.
“When a government goes to the Department of Justice, it is like any person going to the DOJ,” Katz says. “The department has the discretion to act or not act, but it has now been informed of alleged criminal conduct.”
He says he can’t predict what will happen this time.
“We don’t know, especially because, in the world of Trump, [the] DOJ has become — or at least seems to have become — less independent than it was in the past,” Katz says.
Tom Ginsburg, a University of Chicago law professor who focuses on constitutional and international law, says that, even though the Mexican government can’t force the United States to investigate, it can send an important political message tol Mexican citizens that their government “ is not abandoning them.”
But he says international law can do little to force the United States to take accountability.
“In general, there’s your rights, and then there’s what are the remedies,” he says. “What’s the mechanism for enforcing it?”
He says there are few ways to compel a country to remedy a violation of international law, and the United States has often resisted complying.
“I know no one’s holding their breath with the Trump administration,” he says.
Waiting for answers
Villegas González’s case shows what those limits mean for a family and a community.
Reyna Torres Mendívil, Mexico’s consul general in Chicago, says Mexico first called for an investigation by the FBI on Sept. 13, 2025, a day after Villegas González died. It also sent a diplomatic request to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico.
In a statement, a spokesperson for DHS says the “ criminal prosecution of the involved ICE officer was declined by the United States Attorney’s Office,” but pursuant to ICE policy, “the ICE Office of Professional Responsibility is continuing its administrative review of the incident.“
In May, the Illinois State Police said it had opened an investigation into the death of Villegas González. No results have been made public.
Torres Mendívil said attorneys representing the Villegas family are conducting their own inquiry as they consider possible legal action. “They are carrying out a parallel investigation into the circumstances and everything that happened, for whatever legal action may be appropriate,” Torres Mendívil says.
The consulate did not answer subsequent questions seeking specifics about whether the family has taken legal action into the death of Villegas González.
The consulate cannot represent families directly in U.S. courts, but Torres Mendívil said it can provide money for outside lawyers on a case-by-case basis. “We do provide resources so that attorneys can do it,” she said. “Not in every case. The case has to be viable.”
In Villegas González’s case, she said the consulate is “assisting the family with the payment of the attorneys” working to reunify his children with relatives.
Building a record and pressure
Mexico has also made a formal request to the United Nation to gather information about the deaths, including that of Villegas González, and examine whether the United States met its duties under international law.
The U.N. could ask U.S. officials what happened, review whether the deaths were properly investigated and call for more information, further investigation or changes in U.S. practices.
Sarah Dávila, an associate professor of law at UIC and director of the International Human Rights Clinic who says she was speaking on behalf of herself and not the university, says the United States has a duty under international human-rights law to investigate reports of abuse. But the U.N. Human Rights Council cannot force U.S. agencies to comply.
“While recommendations from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights are not binding, or findings from United Nations procedures, they carry enormous weight,” Dávila says.
She says those findings could create an independent record and later be used in civil or criminal cases in the U.S.
The cease-and-desist letters do not carry legal force on their own but serve as a formal “warning” not to destroy or alter evidence and can become important if a case later goes to trial, experts say.
Ginsburg says Mexico could also make a case before the U.N. that the rights of its citizens were violated under international law. That could include violations of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which requires the agency detaining a foreign national to allow the detainee to have access to their consular officials, who could visit them in detention and help them obtain a lawyer.
According to Shaw Drake, an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law, Mexico could have another source of leverage. The United States relies heavily on Mexico to accept deportees, including people from countries other than Mexico.
“If Mexico refuses to receive those third-country nationals [for deportation], it puts a major wrench in the administration’s current mass deportation efforts,” Drake says.
This could give Mexico’s demands for accountability greater political weight, he said, if the country chooses to use it.
Artemio Arreola, political director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights says that even though he thinks Mexico’s announcement is mainly political and diplomatic, investigations are still important because families deserve to know exactly how their relatives died, particularly when evidence has contradicted official accounts.
“These investigations are even more important because, in many of these cases, the official accounts have turned out to be false,” he says.
“Authorities have put forward narratives that later evidence has contradicted. “We have to know exactly how these deaths occurred.”