Sheinbaum vows to ‘defend Mexicans at every level’ amid anger at Trump over migrant deaths

The Mexican government has voiced concern about the deaths of its citizens in US custody, with Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum also pushing back against the Trump administration’s decision to impose an energy blockade on Cuba.

The progressive Mexican leader has walked a careful line with Trump for more than a year, addressing provocations with a measured tone and meeting US requests to crack down on cartels more so than her predecessors, in an effort to offset threats of tariffs and US military action against gangs.

But in the wake of mounting deaths of Mexican citizens in custody of immigration officials and America’s blockade of Cuba, a key Mexican ally, Sheinbaum has taken a harder line.

Sheinbaum’s latest rebuke came on Tuesday, a day after 49-year-old Mexican citizen Alejandro Cabrera Clemente died in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency detention centre in Louisiana. The incident was the fifteenth death of a Mexican citizen in US custody in little over a year.

Mexico’s government quickly called the deaths “unacceptable” and the ICE detention centres “incompatible with human rights standards and the protection of life”.

Sheinbaum said on Tuesday that she requested investigations into the deaths of the 15 migrants, and instructed Mexican consulates to visit detention centres daily.

Her government would raise the deaths in detention centres to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and was considering appealing to the UN, she said. “We are going to defend Mexicans at every level,” Sheinbaum said, adding that “there are many Mexicans whose only crime is not having papers”.

The White House offered no comment on Tuesday about Sheinbaum’s tougher stance, nor did it comment on the rising number of deaths of Mexican nationals in ICE custody.

Protesters face off with LAPD outside the Metropolitan Detention Center during an anti-ICE protest in Los Angeles. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Sheinbaum has maintained what she has described as a “cool head” to provocations by Trump, who has exerted more pressure on Latin America than any US leader in decades. In just a few months, the Trump administration deposed Venezuela’s president, imposed an oil blockade on Cuba and threatened military intervention against Mexican cartels.

She has had to balance maintaining a strong relationship with Trump while repeatedly stressing Mexico’s sovereignty to appease her own base.

Her government has come down harder on cartels than her predecessor and bolstered trade relations ahead of renegotiations of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, free trade agreement.

While Trump has taken public jabs at Sheinbaum – at one point suggesting cartels have greater control over Mexico than her government – he’s also regularly made nods to their amicable relationship. “She is really a nice person, I like her a lot,” he said last month.

The main point of contention between the two governments has been Cuba. Solidarity with the US adversary has been a cornerstone of Mexico’s political ethos since the Cuban revolution.

The relationship hit a hurdle in late January, when Trump announced he would slap tariffs on any country that sends oil to Cuba. The move directly affected Mexico, which for years has shipped oil to Cuba.

While Sheinbaum reluctantly paused oil shipments to Cuba, she has continued to challenge the Trump administration’s push for regime change.

“Mexico has every right to send fuel, whether for humanitarian or commercial reasons,” Sheinbaum said earlier this week.

She has described Trump’s energy blockade of Cuba as “unjust” and accused the US government of “suffocating” Cubans with sanctions.

Sheinbaum’s recently bolder tone suggests a calculation that her administration can push back on some politically important fronts as long as they also are making progress on strengthening trade and meeting Trump administration requests on security and migration, said Carin Zissis, vice-president of content strategy for the Council of the Americas.

At the same time, surging energy prices due to the Iran war have made the US more dependent on allies in Mexico, she and other analysts said, prompting Washington to walk back from any drastic moves against Mexican cartels or Cuba, at least in the short term.