MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum requested investigations into the deaths of 15 Mexican citizens in U.S. immigration detention centers and instructed Mexican consuls to visit the facilities daily. The Mexican government protested the number of its citizens who have died in U.S. custody.

"We are going to defend Mexicans at every level. There are many Mexicans whose only crime is not having papers," Sheinbaum said.

The most recent death involved Alejandro Cabrera Clemente, a 49-year-old Mexican citizen who died in a Louisiana Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center. His death was the fifteenth death of a Mexican citizen in U.S. custody in a little over a year. Sheinbaum has not received a response to her request for investigations into the deaths.

The Mexican government said, "The deaths are unacceptable and ICE detention centers are incompatible with human rights standards and the protection of life." Beyond the requested investigations and daily consular visits, the Mexican government said it would file a legal brief supporting a lawsuit by detainees over poor conditions in detention centers. It also said it would raise the detainee deaths with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and is considering appealing to the United Nations regarding the deaths.

The White House offered no comment on Sheinbaum's requests or on the deaths of Mexican nationals in ICE custody. For more than a year, Sheinbaum has addressed U.S. actions with what she has described as a "cool head" approach, and she has implemented U.S. requests to crack down on criminal cartels more than her predecessors to offset threats of tariffs and potential U.S. military action against the gangs. The Trump administration threatened military intervention against Mexican cartels.

A February AP-NORC poll found that about six in ten U.S. adults said Trump has gone too far in sending federal immigration agents into American cities.