{"id":343876,"date":"2025-08-14T12:48:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T12:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/343876\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T12:48:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T12:48:11","slug":"sheinbaums-expulsion-of-criminals-is-more-about-placating-trump-than-keeping-mexico-safe-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/343876\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheinbaum\u2019s expulsion of criminals is more about placating Trump than keeping Mexico safe | Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mexico\u2019s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has denied that the transfer of 26 alleged cartel members to the United States<\/a> was part of any kind of deal with Washington and was instead about her country\u2019s own security priorities.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s expulsion marked the second time Mexico had sent top criminals to the US this year: in February, Mexican authorities handed over 29 cartel members<\/a>, including druglord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was responsible for the murder of a DEA agent in 1985. The latest transfers took place after US authorities vowed that prosecutors would not seek the death penalty<\/a> in any of the cases.<\/p>\n

But despite the claims from Sheinbaum and others in her government, analysts say these transfers are less about Mexico\u2019s national security and more about appeasing Donald Trump, who has made going after drug cartels a hallmark policy of his administration \u2013 even going so far as to designate several Mexican criminal groups as foreign terrorist organizations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think [Sheinbaum] believes she can depressurize by sending a bunch of narcs that are already in custody \u2026 as an offering to placate Washington\u2019s thirst for Mexican criminals,\u201d said Tony Payan, a Mexico<\/a> expert at Rice University\u2019s Baker Institute for Public Policy. \u201cThey\u2019re simply being put on a plane and offered on a silver platter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sheinbaum said that the expulsion of 26 criminals from organized crime groups including the Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa cartels was unrelated to efforts to reach a new security agreement with the United States.<\/p>\n

Among those handed over to US authorities were Abigael Gonz\u00e1lez Valencia, a leader of Los Cuinis,\u201d, a criminal group closely allied with the Jalisco cartel, as well as Roberto Salazar, wanted in connection with the slaying of a Los Angeles county sheriff\u2019s deputy in 2008.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn all of these cases, the extradition or the transfer of these members of organized crime, the decision is for the safety of our country,\u201d she said during a news conference on Wednesday. \u201cNor do they have anything to do with the security agreement; they are sovereign decisions taken for the security of our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mexican security minister, Omar Garc\u00eda Harfuch, echoed her comments, saying the move had been taken to stop convicted criminals from continuing to run their organizations from behind bars.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis action was taken to prevent the continued ordering of kidnappings, extortion, homicides and other crimes from prison,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sheinbaum has taken numerous other actions to crack down<\/a> on drug trafficking in an effort to appease the Trump administration, including deploying thousands of troops to the state of Sinaloa, a cartel stronghold, arresting dozens of top-level narcos and seizing large quantities of fentanyl<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Sheinbaum still faces increasing pressure from the Trump administration<\/a> in terms of economic tariffs which would hobble the Mexican economy. Perhaps not coincidentally, the timing of tariff discussions have been closely followed by the transfer of wanted criminals from Mexico to the US.<\/p>\n

The transfers in February came as officials in Mexico were attempting to put off the Trump administration\u2019s imposition of tariffs on Mexican imports. This latest round of 26 criminal transfers comes just a few weeks after Trump spoke with Sheinbaum and agreed to delay the threatened 30% tariffs for another 90 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, Mexico hasn\u2019t faced the levels of tariffs that were supposed to take effect because of fentanyl trafficking on February 1,\u201d said Cecilia Farf\u00e1n-M\u00e9ndez, a security analyst at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. \u201cThese types of transfers which for the Mexican government are not necessarily costly are a way of making progress in DC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sheinbaum \u201cis trying to show Washington that she\u2019s pliable, she\u2019s cooperative, she is responsive, and she\u2019s willing to talk and she\u2019s willing to concede\u201d, Payan added.<\/p>\n

Still, according to Ilan Katz, head of the criminal law commission at the Mexican Bar Association, the claim by security minister Harfuch that these criminals continue to present a threat in Mexico even behind bars is not without merit.<\/p>\n

\u201cNarcos in Mexico have had a lot of operational capacity even while in confinement,\u201d he said. \u201cOne of the solutions is to effectively remove any drug trafficker from the country who might have communication with their criminal groups from prison.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two mass transfers are also significant in that they are not technically extraditions, but rather the Mexican government simply acting unilaterally without the due process normally required by the justice system to complete an extradition.<\/p>\n

\u201cDrug traffickers in Mexico have been able to evade extraditions to the United States through a series of injunctions and suspensions,\u201d said Katz. \u201cIt\u2019s the lesser of two evils to send this guy right now and comply with the extradition order rather than to continue keeping him here because of those suspensions.\u201d<\/p>\n

But this too is problematic, says Farf\u00e1n-M\u00e9ndez, if Mexico is simply exporting its criminals without due process to be dealt with elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt creates questions about whether this represents justice in Mexico,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat does it say about our criminal justice system?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mexico\u2019s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has denied that the transfer of 26 alleged cartel members to the United States…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-343876","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115027201460759750","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}