Before I start this post on Mexico, I want to recommend this piece from the Two Miles High blog on Claudia Sheinbaum’s wardrobe choices and her run-in with the Virgin of Guadalupe. I hope to write more about this, but until then, it’s a great post.
TBone sent me this clip from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s daily press conference (mañanera) on Wednesday. In it, she promised to have her government’s response to the killing of yet another Mexican citizen in ICE custody. So far, ICE has killed 14 Mexicans in detention centers and 3 in ICE operations.
In yesterday’s mañanera, Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco Álvarez detailed the government’s response to what la Presidenta says she considers homicides:
Filing criminal complaints with state and federal prosecutors in the US alleging homicide.
Filing cease-and-desist actions against the private operators of ICE detention centers.
Compaints to the UN and Inter-American Commissions on Human Rights (which were already occurring.
Lorenz Salgado Araujo, who was shot and killed by an ICE Agent on Tuesday in Houston.
I don’t think that the current, lawless Trump Administration will do anything about this, but anything the Mexican government can do to nail down the facts around these homicides will help the next administration prosecute the murderers who did this.
In another US/Mexico dust-up, the plane that was used to transport the cartel leader “El Mayo” from Mexico to the US is now on display in a New Mexico aviation museum, on loan from the FBI. That’s re-opened the debate about the FBI’s possible participation in an operation on Mexican soil. Ken Salazar probably lied about the lack of FBI involvement:
The Attorney General’s Office (FGR) opened new lines of investigation in the case of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, and faces a scenario in which “three serious situations” were committed: “violations of Mexican and international law, the establishment of a pact outside the law, as well as a lie by a U.S. diplomat (former ambassador Ken Salazar),” which amounts to a transgression of the cornerstone principle of good faith in diplomatic relations, established in various international treaties.
This was pointed out by the head of the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, Ernestina Godoy Ramos, who stated at a press conference that the violations of national and international law would have been committed “if the recent information is confirmed regarding the fact that the FBI acknowledges that it was a successful operation, planned, organized, and executed” by that U.S. agency.
These actions carried out by the FBI would have taken part in the capture and transfer of El Mayo Zambada in July 2024 to U.S. territory and his imprisonment in that country, which violated Mexican and international norms, a situation that was denied by Ken Salazar at the time.
A couple of notes on the players here:
Foreign Minister Velasco Álvarez is 38, a graduate of the University of Chicago, is openly gay. He seems like a fighter — Claudia called on him to explain that a former (conservative) government had objected to the extradition of another accused criminal, on the grounds of Mexican soverignty, even though they’re now saying that the extradition of El Mayo is OK.
Attorney General Godoy Ramos was Claudia’s AG when she ran Mexico City. Ramos replaces Alejandro Gertz Manero, 86 who was so notoriously lazy about his job that editorial cartoons portrayed him as sleeping. He was also accused of working in a bathrobe. Attorney General terms in Mexico are nine years and they’re supposed to be independent, so Manero, who was appointed in 2019, had two more years to go. It’s widely speculated that Claudia forced him out in favor of her legal advisor.
