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 U.S. custody.

Mexican Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco told reporters that the government would take “strong legal measures” to protect the human rights of Mexican citizens in the United States.

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

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

Salgado, 52, had worked as a builder for three decades in the Houston area after coming to the United States as an undocumented immigrant, his son said.

Ronaldo Salgado told reporters that his father “did not deserve to be reduced to a ‘Mexican shot dead by ICE’ headline.”

His family said Lorenzo Salgado was on his way to work when an ICE agent shot him.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement posted on X that “ICE law enforcement attempted to stop a vehicle as part of a law enforcement operation aimed at arresting an illegal alien.”

in the statement, externalDHS alleged that Salgado had “attempted to evade arrest.”

“According to the information we are receiving, he rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle, refused to follow multiple verbal commands, and used his vehicle as a weapon in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement agent, causing our officer to fire his weapon in self-defense,” the statement read.