OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
1:28 PM – Wednesday, January 28, 2026
The Mexican government is being accused of breaking the law by sending nearly 100 cartel members to the United States without an extradition order.
In a press conference on Tuesday, a group of lawyers and family members of cartel figures accused the government of unlawfully sending citizens over the border after denying them due process, as an extradition order requires a lengthy legal process in Mexico. Since last February, Mexico has sent a total of 92 cartel members to the U.S. in three separate transfers.
The most recent transfer that failed to follow extradition procedures involved 37 people. This has been perceived as a political gesture by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration in response to President Donald Trump’s administration’s military threats against cartels.
“Mexico is currently under intense pressure from the United States,” said Yarey Sánchez Lagunas, lawyer for two people transferred to the U.S. within the last year. “This forces us to seriously question if these decisions are being used to show political results, even if it comes at the expense of due process or the rule of law.”
Also involved in the case is Sánchez Lagunas, defense lawyer for Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Itiel Palacios García and Arellano Félix Cartel leader Pablo Edwin Huerta Nuño, who were sent across the border in February and August last year.
Lawyers also represented capo Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who now serves a life sentence in a maximum-security prison in Colorado.
Vanesa Guzmán, partner of Zetas Cartel leader Juan Pedro Saldívar Farías, filed a criminal complaint to Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office on Tuesday against high-ranking members of Mexico’s government, including Mexican Security Minister Omar García Harfuch, who has pushed for a cartel crackdown. Farías, who was sent to the U.S. last week in the latest group of transfers, is accused of arms and drug trafficking.
Guzmán accused Harfuch and other officials of “treason” in her complaint.
“The transfer of my partner is nothing less than exile,” she said. “As of today, we haven’t heard anything from him. He hasn’t even made his legally permitted call.”
Former Chief of International Operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Mike Vigil contended that Mexico’s constitution authorizes the president to export criminals, such as the 37 sent last week. Though Guzmán argues the detainees were already carrying out sentences in Mexico, and therefore posed no threat, Vigil noted that capos often use Mexican prisons as hubs to run criminal operations.
“Sheinbaum did it to enhance cooperation with the U.S. government, but at the same time she understands that these individuals, if they remain in prisons there … they usually have access to their criminal organizations, have access through phones,” Vigil said.
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