Under pressure by Trump, Mexico sends 26 accused cartel operatives to US

President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico during a news conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, Nov. 28, 2024. The Mexican government said this week that 26 people being extradited to the United States were “wanted for their links to criminal organizations for drug trafficking, among other crimes, and represented a permanent risk to public security.” (Luis Antonio Rojas/The New York Times)

By Jack Nicas, Maria Abi-Habib, Paulina Villegas and Alan Feuer

Mexico sent 26 people accused of being cartel operatives to the United States, Mexican officials announced earlier this week, in an apparent bid to alleviate intense pressure from President Donald Trump to do more to combat the powerful groups smuggling fentanyl across the border.

The transfer is the second this year by Mexican officials, who sent 29 cartel leaders to the United States in February — a decision that sparked debate in Mexico over the legal grounds and political sense of such a gambit.

For months, Mexico has been under intense pressure from Trump, who has threatened high tariffs over issues including immigration and combating drug cartels. Although the Mexican government has worked hard to curb migration and has launched an aggressive campaign against the Sinaloa cartel, U.S. officials have consistently asked for more action.

On Friday, The New York Times reported that Trump had secretly ordered the Pentagon to use military force against Latin American cartels that his administration had deemed terrorist organizations.

There have been conversations between Mexican and U.S. officials over the transfer in recent days, according to four people with knowledge of the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private negotiations.

The Mexican government said Tuesday that the 26 people being extradited were “wanted for their links to criminal organizations for drug trafficking, among other crimes, and represented a permanent risk to public security.” It said that the U.S. Justice Department had requested their extradition and had committed to not requesting the death penalty in their cases.

Authorities did not immediately identify the people extradited. It was unclear whether they had been convicted of offenses in Mexico or were being held in prison awaiting trial.

Separately Tuesday, Mexico’s attorney general’s office announced that it had extradited to the United States a woman accused of trafficking drugs across the border in 2016 and 2017. It was unclear whether she was one of the 26 accused operatives extradited.

On Friday, the news of Trump’s Pentagon directive appeared to surprise President Claudia Sheinbaum, who had been saying that Mexican and U.S. officials were nearing a security agreement to expand their cooperation in the fight against cartels. Speaking to reporters shortly after the news broke, she flatly rejected the idea that U.S. military forces would operate inside Mexico without the permission of Mexican authorities.

“The United States is not going to come to Mexico with the military. We cooperate, we collaborate, but there is not going to be an invasion. That is ruled out, absolutely ruled out,” she said. “It is not part of any agreement, far from it. When it has been brought up, we have always said no.”

Extraditions from Mexico to the United States have become relatively common, but rarely have so many taken place in such a short time. When Mexico has extradited people in the past, it has usually been one or two at a time. Mexican authorities have now sent 55 people in two moves this year.

Not everyone in Mexico’s government agrees with the strategy. Some officials in Sheinbaum’s administration thought it was a bad idea to give up the 29 cartel members in February, early into the second Trump administration, before the Mexican government had clinched a bilateral security agreement or tariff deal, according to two people close to the Sheinbaum administration.

Even after those extraditions, Trump has threatened higher tariffs on Mexico and raised using the U.S. military to fight the cartels. The Mexican government lost a bargaining chip that could have been valuable in bilateral negotiations, those officials believe.

“The Sheinbaum government is trying to show that they are willing to collaborate on these security issues,” said Cecilia Farfán Méndez, a security analyst at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, an organization based in Switzerland. “Sending a new batch of alleged criminals to the U.S. is not something that the average Mexican cares about, but it goes a long way with Washington.”

Yet others felt that using extraditions to try to appease the Trump administration could undermine Mexico’s institutions.

“We’re growing increasingly used to the fact that Mexico outsources its criminal justice to the U.S.,” said Carlos Bravo Regidor, a Mexican political analyst. “It’s a sort of implicit admission that we can’t put them to trial them here. We can’t process them in our system.”