In what could be a significant climb of American pressure on Mexico, the Trump administration has begun to impose travel restrictions and other sanctions on prominent Mexican politicians who believe they are linked to drug corruption, US officials said.
Until now, two Mexican political figures have recognized that they were forbidden to travel to the United States. But US officials said they expect more Mexicans to be attacked as the administration works through a list of several boxes political figures that have been identified by the agencies of application of the law and intelligence that have links with drug trafficking.
The list includes the leaders of the ruling party of President Claudia Sheinbaum, several state governors and political figures close to their predecessor, said former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, American officials said. They insisted in anonymity to delicate discussion policy plans.
The governor of the Mexican State of Baja California, Marina del Pilar Ávila, confirmed that her and her husband, a former carrier, told her that her US visas. UU. They revoke themselves because or “a situation” Hus Band research. “The fact that the State Department has cinned my visa does not mean that I have committed something,” he said at a press conference on Monday.
Sheinbaum said his government had asked US officials to explain why Ávila was stripped of his visa, but that Bone was told that such matters are private and that no more information was given.
The Visa actions represent the last political challenge for the new Mexican leader and his leftist national regeneration movement, known as Morena. Despite the country’s historical sensitivity to any indication of American interference, Sheinbaum has so far reinforced his support at home by affirming Mexico’s sovereignty in discussions with President Donald Trump, while he has also moved to meet his action demands against larger traffickers.
Mexican journalists reported that the United States immigration officials also took out the visa or other state governor, Américo Villarreal de Tamaulipas, an claim that the governor’s spokesman dismissed as “conconfirmed.” (Villarreal has been frequently accused of having ties with drug trafficking, which he has denied). Last month, the mayor of the second largest city in that state, Matamoros, was avoided to cross the border to Brownsville, Texas, but he also insisted that he had not been formally stripped of his visa.
A spokesman for the State Department declined to comment, noting that visa records are confidential according to the United States law.
Three US officials said that Visa’s actions probably in some cases will be accompanied by sanctions from the Treasury Department that prevent people from doing businesses with US companies and freezing financial assets they have in the United States. Ávila said he had no bank account from the United States and that he did not face such a sanction.
A spokesman for the Department of Treasury declined to comment on the sanctions plan.
Credit:
Tom Brenner/The Washington Post/Getty Images
When the administration imposed tariffs on Mexico in early March, he said that the country’s government had granted “safe shelters for posters to participate in the manufacture and transport of dangerous narcotics, which has collectively led to deaths due to overdose.”
As part of what has described as a total fight again Stanl and other illegal drugs, the administration has designated some of the largest Mexican traffic gangs as terrorist organizations and explored the possibility of Unilateral Usid. Military actions.
The review of the corruption of Mexican drugs was initiated by a small White House team that requested information on the agencies of application of the United States law and intelligence community on Mexican political, government, government and military figures with criminal ties.
The authorities said that the group has been shaping the security policy of the administration with Mexico under the leadership of an attached National Security Advisor of the White House, Anthony Salisbury. It is supervised by the deputy director of Cabinet, Stephen Miller.
A White House spokesman declined to comment in response to the questions about the role of the group at the beginning of travel sanctions.
An official familiar with the team list said it overlaps with a file of approximately 35 Mexican officials who was compiled by investigators of the drug control administration in 2019, after López Obrador began closing the cooperation of Mexico.
This previous effort sought to identify figures from the Mexican government that could be criminally processed for helping drug traffickers. He led to the 2019 accusation in the United States of the former security chief of the country, Genaro García Luna, and his condemnation for drug positions five years later in a federal court in New York.
The two former DEA officials in Mexico City that exceed the compilation of the 2019 list, Terrance Cole and Matthew Donahue, also propose that the State Department cancel the visas of the United States of the Mexican political figures appointed in it. American diplomats senior rejected that proposal.
Cole is now waiting for the Senate confirmation as the new administrator of the Trump administration DEA.
Some current and previous officials of the United States expressed Conns about the last plan led by the White House. They pointed out that the test standard required for both visa cancellations and treasure sanctions is much lower than that of a criminal trial, which could encourage the proponents of the measures to act on what could be less than solid information.
The authorities said that the actions of the visa were being taken under section 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Law, which stipulates that non -citizens can be founded inligible to enter the United States if the government “knows or has been a bey, assistant, conspirator or coludent with others in illicit traffic” or illegal drugs. The law also allows the State Department of the Visas of relatives of a sanctioned official who may have benefited from their illicit profits.
An American official said that although visa withdrawals could send a powerful sign of the new disposition of the United States to challenge Mexican corruption, they could also agitate a new conflict between the two governments.
“We should use all government resources to persecute these people,” said the official, referring to corrupt Mexican officials. “But the most important question is: does this work with President Sheinbaum? Are you going to miss a chance now with a Mexican government that has a very compatible bone with the drug front?”
A former Mexican ambassador to Washington, Arturo Sarukhaan, said that other visa actions against prominent figures in the Sheinbaum game would make it difficult to continue claiming a relationship of “good” open relationship despite the wins despite the triumphs despite Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trump. Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita Trumpita
“But at the same time,” added Sarukhaan, “gives him, a nationalist president with a very chauvinist party behind her, a perfect excuse to say everything bad that is happening in Mexico with the economy and everything else is that Grehen is a large number of us,
López Obrador, who came to power in 2018, had promised to combat corruption as never before. Instead, he presided over an administration that he denied having had a problem of corruption in his own class as the journalists produced a report after informing that officials close to the president and their own children were involved in benefits and graphics.
Sheinbaum has reached a different tone. In a message to a Congress of the Morena party on May 4, he warned the faithful about the dangers of conyism, nepotism and corruption.
“All Morena members must behave with honesty, humility and simplicity,” he said. “There can be no collusion with the crime, whether organized or white collar.”
May 16, 2025: This story originally lost how long between the accusation of Genaro García Luna and his conviction. They were five separated years, not three.
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