Why Mexico is accelerating cartel prisoner transfers as Trump threatens military action

MEXICO CITY — Mexico has sent 37 other suspected cartel members to the United States to face justice, the country’s top law enforcement official said Tuesday, in what appears to be the latest attempt to discourage President Trump from ordering a U.S. military strike against drug trafficking targets in Mexico.

The 37 suspects were sent aboard seven Mexican military flights to various U.S. cities, including Washington, Houston, New York, San Antonio and San Diego, Omar García Harfuch, Mexico’s security minister, said in social media posts on X.

It’s the third transfer of “high-impact criminals” from Mexico to the United States since Trump took over the presidency a year ago, pledging to crack down on Mexican cartels. The transfers involve a total of 92 prisoners currently held by the United States, according to Mexico.

While García Harfuch stressed that the deported suspects “can no longer generate violence in our country,” the transfers are widely seen here as an effort to appease Trump and thwart his oft-expressed desire to send U.S. military assets against the cartels in Mexico.

The latest transfer of power was clearly an attempt by the Mexican government to ease “pressure from Donald Trump on Mexico to allow incursions by elite U.S. troops to launch ground attacks on pharmaceutical labs,” said David Saucedo, a Mexican security consultant.

“For months, Mexico has been managing the conflict, gradually responding to the demands of the U.S. government,” Saucedo said. “This is precisely what they are doing now, under American pressure, making small concessions and not fully achieving the goals that Washington had set for itself on this issue.”

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has been working for a year to convince the Trump administration that Mexican authorities are targeting cartels like never before. His daily briefings include regular updates on arrests of suspects, destruction of drug laboratories, disruption of money laundering operations and other actions.

Sheinbaum rejected Trump’s repeated requests to send U.S. troops to help fight cartels in Mexico.

The notion of U.S. military intervention in Mexico is highly controversial in a country that has weathered various historic invasions and land grabs by the United States, including the 19th-century Mexican-American War, which resulted in Mexico losing half of its national territory, including California.

However, Trump, while praising Sheinbaum, repeatedly insisted that Mexico is “controlled” by the cartels and that U.S. military action was likely necessary to reverse the trend.

Many in Mexico fear that Trump will be further emboldened to deploy the U.S. military south of the border after the successful U.S. operation in Caracas on Jan. 3 to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, whom U.S. prosecutors accuse of drug trafficking.

Maduro’s arrest follows months in which U.S. forces destroyed ships suspected of carrying drugs, killing crew members, both in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. Trump described the operation as a likely prelude to “ground” strikes against drug traffickers.

In a recent interview with Fox News, Trump said, “We’ve eliminated 97 percent of the drugs coming in by sea and now we’re going to start hitting land, as far as the cartels are concerned.” »

Mexico, unlike Venezuela, is a major source of illicit drugs destined for the United States.

Mexico is both a major transshipment point for South American cocaine and a production center for fentanyl, the synthetic opioid blamed for tens of thousands of overdose deaths in the United States. In the United States, illicit fentanyl is produced in Mexico and smuggled across the border, authorities say.

Trump has designated fentanyl and its precursor chemicals as weapons of mass destruction, a classification many see as increasing the likelihood of U.S. strikes against Mexican trafficking targets.

The Trump administration had already designated several Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

The latest group of 37 detainees includes suspects affiliated with various cartels, including the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation syndicates – Mexico’s two largest criminal organizations – as well as the Northeast Cartel, which operates along the Texas-Mexico border, and the Beltrán Leyva gang.

Those detainees include both suspects charged in the United States and others wanted by U.S. authorities but for whom no official charges are filed, Saucedo said.

The Justice Department agreed not to seek the death penalty for any of those deported to the United States, García Harfuch said. Mexico has abolished capital punishment and regularly seeks guarantees from the United States that any suspects extradited or otherwise sent to the United States will not face the death penalty.

Although all 37 deportees are wanted in the United States, none are particularly well-known beyond law enforcement circles.

The most notorious of the 92 cartel members deported north over the past year was legendary drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, wanted for the 1985 murder of U.S. drug enforcement agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.

The transfer of the 37 suspects was announced on the first anniversary of Trump’s inauguration, a date that sparked a round of criticism in Mexican media, reflecting a turbulent year in U.S.-Mexico relations.

Since Trump took office, Sheinbaum has fought a battle of sorts on two fronts: She has sought to prevent any U.S. military incursions against the cartels, even as her administration has engaged in a bureaucratic effort to thwart Trump’s plans to impose more tariffs on Mexican imports.

However, there is no indication that the January 20 date announcing the transfer of 37 drug agents was anything other than a coincidence.

Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.