Mexico sends 37 cartel figures to the United | Political News

Mexico’s security minister said Tuesday that it had despatched another 37 members of Mexican drug cartels to the United States, as the Trump administration ratchets up strain on governments to crack down on prison networks it says are smuggling medication across the border.

Mexican Security Minister Omar García Harfuch wrote in a social media post on X that the people transferred have been “high impact criminals” that “represented a real threat to the country’s security.”

It is the third time in less than one yr that Mexico has despatched detained cartel members to the U.S. as the nation makes an attempt to offset mounting threats by U.S. President Donald Trump. García Harfuch said the authorities has despatched 92 people in whole.

Video shared by Mexican authorities reveals a line of handcuffed prisoners surrounded by heavily-armed and masked officers being loaded onto a army jet at an airport on the outskirts of Mexico City.

“As the pressure increases, as demands from the White House dial up, (Mexico’s government) needs to resort to extraordinary measures, such as these transfers,” said David Mora, a Mexico analyst at the International Crisis Group.

The U.S. State Department and Justice Department didn’t immediately reply to a request for remark.

Tuesday’s switch included a handful of important figures from the Sinaloa Cartel, the Beltrán-Leyva cartel, Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Northeast Cartel, a remnant of the notorious Zetas based in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas, across from Texas. Mexican authorities said that all had pending U.S. circumstances.

Among those transferred was María Del Rosario Navarro Sánchez, the first Mexican citizen to face fees in the U.S. for offering help to a terrorist group, after being accused of conspiring with a cartel.

Trump has publicly entertained the concept of army motion on Mexican cartels, language that has only gotten more combative since a U.S. army operation in Venezuela deposed former President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month.

Turning his consideration to Mexico shortly after the Venezuela assault, Trump said in an interview with Fox News: “We’ve knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by water and we are going to start now hitting land, with regard to the cartels.”

Last week, Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke with Trump, telling him that U.S. intervention in Mexico was “not necessary,” but emphasizing that the two governments would continue to collaborate.

Last February, Mexico despatched 29 cartel figures to the U.S., including drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was behind the killing of a U.S. DEA agent in 1985. In August, a second spherical noticed 26 Mexican cartel figures despatched to the U.S. None had the profile of Caro Quintero, but spanning a number of cartels, the figures might help U.S. prosecutors construct circumstances.

After the August switch, García Harfuch said it was a public security resolution, because Mexico didn’t need them to continue working their illicit companies from inside Mexican prisons.

Another switch of prisoners to the U.S. had been rumored for weeks. Mexico has sought to guarantee the Trump administration that it continues to be a prepared companion in combating drug traffickers.

“For the Trump administration and the Trump base, what is going to matter in the end is some wins that Trump can actually bring back and say ‘Look this is what I’m getting out of Mexico,’” said Mora.