mexico city — A group of lawyers and family members of prominent drug cartel figures accused the Mexican government on Tuesday of violating the law by sending nearly a hundred Mexican citizens to the United States without an extradition order.
This comes less than a week after the administration of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum sent… 37 cartel members arrested To the United States in what observers described as an offer by the Mexican authorities to compensate for growing threats by US President Donald Trump to take military action against the cartels.
Since last February, Mexico has sent a total of 92 people Cartel members In three separate transfers to the United States requested by the Trump administration. It’s part of a bigger one Sheinbaum’s strategy To eliminate cartels and maintain a positive relationship with Trump.
The transfers were the focus of a legal debate that only gained more attention after the handover last week. The Mexican government maintained that the transfers were legal and carried out in the name of national security. The Trump administration said the capos are wanted for crimes in the United States, and several have pending extradition requests from the United States.
At a press conference on Tuesday, lawyers for the cartel members asserted that they were denied due process because they were sent to the United States without an extradition order, which requires a lengthy legal process in Mexico.
“Mexico is currently under intense pressure from the United States,” said Yari Sánchez Lagunas, a lawyer for two people who were transferred to the United States last year. “This leads us to seriously question whether these decisions are being used to demonstrate political outcomes, even at the expense of due process or the rule of law.”
The arguments echo those made by the lawyers of the notorious capo Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmanis now serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Colorado.
Sánchez Lagunas is the defense attorney for Etel Palacios García, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel who was sent to the United States last February, and Pablo Edwin Huerta Nuño, the leader of the Arellano Felix Cartel in northern Mexico who was sent in August.
Vanessa Guzman, an associate of the Zetas’ regional leader, went so far as to file a criminal complaint against high-ranking members of the Mexican government, specifically Mexican Security Minister Omar Garcia Harfush, who led much of the government’s crackdown on the cartels. Her accomplice, Juan Pedro Saldivar Farias, was sent to the United States last week in the latest set of transfers and is accused of arms and drug trafficking.
Guzmán accused Harfush and other security officials of “treason” in her complaint filed with the Mexican Attorney General’s Office on Tuesday, although lawyers for the transferred cartel members said they had no legal recourse within Mexico to challenge the transfers now that their clients are outside the country.
“My partner’s transfer is nothing less than exile,” she said. “To date, we have heard nothing from him. He has not even made his legally permitted call.”
Some, like Mike Vigil, the former head of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, brushed aside the complaints on Tuesday, praising U.S. authorities for “speeding up” a legal process that has often been stalled for years by lawyers issuing batches of injunctions trying to slow the law enforcement process.
Vigil noted that Mexico’s constitution allows the country’s president to take major steps like those seen last week to protect national security. While Guzmán and the lawyers said the detainees posed no threat because they were already serving sentences in Mexico, Vigil was quick to point out that capos often use Mexican prisons as centers for their criminal operations.
“Sheinbaum did this to enhance cooperation with the U.S. government, but at the same time she recognizes that these individuals, if they remain in prisons there…they usually have access to their criminal organizations, and they can access via phones,” Vigil said. “These fast tracks are very valuable in terms of making sure they face justice.”