Mexico Sends Dozens More Cartel Members to US

Mexico's security minister said Tuesday that it had sent another 37 members of Mexican drug cartels to the United States, as the Trump administration ratchets up pressure on governments to crack down on criminal networks it says are smuggling drugs across the border. Mexican Security Minister Omar García Harfuch wrote in a post on X that the people transferred were "high impact criminals" that "represented a real threat to the country's security." It is the third time in less than one year that Mexico has sent detained cartel members to the US as the country attempts to offset mounting threats from President Trump, the AP reports. García Harfuch said the government has sent 92 people in total.

Tuesday's transfer included figures from the Sinaloa Cartel, the Beltrán-Leyva cartel, Jalisco New Generation Cartel, and the Northeast Cartel, a remnant of the infamous Zetas based in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas, across from Texas. Mexican authorities said that all had pending US cases.

• Trump has entertained the idea of military action on Mexican cartels, language that has only gotten more combative since a US military operation in Venezuela deposed former President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month. Turning his attention to Mexico shortly after the Venezuela attack, 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's President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke with Trump, telling him that US intervention in Mexico was "not necessary," but emphasizing that the two governments would continue to collaborate.
• Last February, Mexico sent 29 cartel figures to the US, including drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was behind the killing of a US DEA agent in 1985. In August, a second round saw 26 Mexican cartel figures sent to the US. None of them were as high-profile as Caro Quintero, but spanning multiple cartels, the figures could help US prosecutors build cases.
• After the August transfer, García Harfuch said it was a public safety decision, because Mexico did not want them to continue operating their illicit businesses from inside Mexican prisons.