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claudia sheinbaum
'We Cannot Stand Silent': Sheinbaum to Seek Criminal Charges Over ICE Detention Deaths
"We cannot turn a blind eye to the Mexicans who have died," said Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.
Jul 10, 2026
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday that her government intends to pursue criminal charges over the deaths of 17 Mexican nationals in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Associated Press reported that Sheinbaum's administration will submit a request "to state prosecutors' offices and the US Department of Justice, asking them to consider criminal charges against those responsible for the deaths." The request, according to AP, "will be accompanied by civil lawsuits against the companies that operate the detention centers in an effort to put an end to human rights violations in those facilities."
Sheinbaum said her government decided to urgently move forward with its likely doomed push for accountability after an ICE agent killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston earlier this week. Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national, had been living in the US for more than three decades.
Mexico's president called the killing "sad and regrettable," arguing that it "appears to have been targeted."
"We are going to do everything in our power, because we cannot stand silent," Sheinbaum said Thursday. "We cannot turn a blind eye to the Mexicans who have died."
According to a recent report by Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch, "the mortality rate of deaths in ICE custody is at its highest level in over a decade and has more than doubled since [US President Donald] Trump’s second term began."
"The rate is nearly four times that of the Biden administration, and more than two and a half times as high as that of the first Trump administration," the report found, noting that a record 71,000 people were in immigration detention in January 2026. "The surge in deaths is much worse than what one would expect even considering the much higher number of people in detention."
Deaths in ICE custody have drawn international alarm, with the United Nations high commissioner for human rights saying last month that "the lack of transparency and clarity surrounding the circumstances of these deaths in custody undermines accountability for them."
“I call for prompt, independent, impartial and effective investigations into all deaths in ICE custody," said Volker Türk. "Those responsible for violations of the law must be held to account, and the rights of the victims’ families to truth, justice and reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence must be upheld."
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'Abolish ICE,' Says Mamdani After Agent Kills Houston Man Lorenzo Salgado Araujo
Salgado "called Houston home for 35 years," said New York's democratic socialist mayor. "On Tuesday, an ICE agent shot and killed him."
Jul 09, 2026
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Thursday renewed his call to "abolish ICE" after a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot a man in Texas earlier this week.
"Lorenzo Salgado Araujo called Houston home for 35 years. On Tuesday, an ICE agent shot and killed him," Mamdani said on social media. "His family learned of his death from a video before anyone bothered to knock on their door."
"New York City stands with the Salgado family in demanding a full, independent investigation and real accountability," the mayor added. "To the Salgado family and any immigrant family in this city living in fear: We grieve with you, and we will continue to stand beside you in the pursuit of justice."
More than 1,000 people gathered in Houston's East End on Wednesday evening to denounce ICE and remember Salgado, a 52-year-old married father of three originally from Mexico who, according to relatives, was in the process of legalizing his status in the United States.
Salgado's son, school teacher Ronaldo Salgado, said that his father had "dedicated his life to giving his family the American dream."
Salgado was driving in the Magnolia Park neighborhood to pick up his construction crew on Tuesday morning when an unidentified ICE agent fatally shot him during an enforcement operation. ICE claimed that Salgado tried to evade arrest and threatened agents with his vehicle, but his family, civil rights advocates, and community leaders strongly dispute that account, pointing to surveillance footage and eyewitness accounts that they argue undermine the agency's narrative.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told The New York Times late on Thursday that neither Salgado nor any of his three passengers were the targets of ICE enforcement, but that they drew agents' attention because one of them resembled a wanted man from Guatemala.
Democratic lawmakers and civil rights groups have joined Salgado's relatives in demanding an independent investigation of his killing.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced Thursday that her government plans to file criminal complaints in the United States in connection with 14 Mexican nationals who died in ICE custody. Sheinbaum added that Salgado's killing "is not only sad and regrettable, but also appears to have been targeted."
On-duty officers from ICE and other Department of Homeland Security agencies have fatally shot at least four other people during President Donald Trump's deadly second-term crackdown on undocumented immigrants: Silverio Villegas González of Mexico and US citizens Ruben Ray Martinez, Renee Good, and Alex Pretti.
At least dozens of people have also died in ICE custody or shortly after being released during Trump's second term. Last month, ICE announced that it was rescinding a 2021 Biden administration policy requiring congressional notification and an investigation whenever a detainee died within 30 days of their release.
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What Progressives Can Learn From Mexico About Avoiding a Right-Wing Backlash
Mexico’s continuity may reflect not only the material results achieved by the government, but also the broader narrative through which those results were understood.
Jun 26, 2026
The recent presidential election in Colombia highlighted a striking political paradox. New data from the country’s national statistics agency shows that the national poverty rate fell to 28% in 2025, the lowest level ever recorded. Nearly 1.8 million Colombians moved out of poverty in a single year, while extreme poverty and income inequality also declined. The figures represent a significant social achievement and continue a multi-year trend of improving living standards.
Yet, despite this advance, Colombians elected right-wing lawyer and businessman Abelardo De La Espriella, whose nationalist and law-and-order platform marks a sharp contrast with the policies of outgoing President Gustavo Petro. The outcome suggests that even significant social and economic progress does not necessarily translate into electoral support for the government that helped produce it.
Nor is Colombia unique. Across the region, electoral cycles have repeatedly shown that social progress does not necessarily produce lasting political loyalty. Similar patterns can be seen in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, and elsewhere in South America, where periods of progressive governance have often been followed by the election of more conservative leaders or governments with markedly different priorities.
Former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa offered one explanation for this phenomenon. He argued that when people escape poverty and enter the middle class, many become primarily concerned with preserving their newly acquired status. As a result, they may become less supportive of policies aimed at extending similar benefits to others. Whether or not one accepts this interpretation, it highlights an important political challenge: The very success of progressive social policies may alter the interests, expectations, and priorities of the people they benefit, making long-term political continuity more difficult to sustain.
The very success of progressive social policies may alter the interests, expectations, and priorities of the people they benefit, making long-term political continuity more difficult to sustain.
There is, however, one notable exception: Mexico.
Mexico presents an important counterexample. The presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador was followed by the election of Claudia Sheinbaum, who belongs to the same political movement and has pledged to continue much of the same agenda. Rather than producing a backlash, the governing project maintained broad popular support through a successful leadership transition.
Why Was Mexico different?
Part of the answer may lie not only in policy outcomes but also in political identity. While many progressive governments in South America have defined themselves primarily through ideological labels such as socialism or the left, Mexico’s governing movement increasingly describes itself through the concept of Mexican Humanism. Although its policies share many objectives with progressive governments elsewhere, the language is notably different. Mexican Humanism emphasizes dignity, community, solidarity, and national culture rather than ideological affiliation.
This distinction may matter. Political projects framed primarily in ideological terms can reinforce divisions between supporters and opponents. Projects rooted in shared cultural and ethical values may be better positioned to build identification across traditional political boundaries. From this perspective, Mexico’s continuity may reflect not only the material results achieved by the government, but also the broader narrative through which those results were understood.
The Colombian election therefore raises a broader question for Latin America. If poverty reduction, lower inequality, and improved social indicators are not enough to guarantee political continuity, what is missing? Is the decisive factor economic performance, security, media influence, political organization, or something deeper within a nation’s culture?
Mexico suggests that political durability may depend on more than effective governance alone. It may also require a shared sense of identity and purpose that transcends conventional ideological categories. The most interesting question may not be why some countries move from the left to the right, but why Mexico has not.
This article was first published on Pressenza.
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Guatemalan President Denies Deal With US for Joint Strikes on Drug Cartels
“There is no agreement authorizing foreign military operations by any country in national territory,” the office of President Bernardo Arévalo said in response to a New York Times report.
May 28, 2026
While acknowledging a request for US support in fighting drug cartels, Guatemala's president on Thursday refuted reporting by The New York Times claiming his government "has agreed to carry out joint strikes with the United States military inside its territory"—action that would violate the country's Constitution.
Citing "three people familiar with the talks," the Times reported that "President Bernardo Arévalo of Guatemala agreed to both airstrikes and other military action in a call with [US] Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth... with operations to start as early as next month."
However, Arévalo's office pushed back in a statement stressing that “there is no agreement authorizing foreign military operations by any country in national territory."
The presidential statement said that Guatemalan Defense Minister Henry Sáenz wrote to Hegseth "to request US cooperation in operations led by Guatemalan security forces against narco-trafficking organizations as part of a strategy launched in 2024."
"This request falls within the framework of existing bilateral agreements on the matter, and adheres to constitutional provisions and laws regarding cooperation agreements on civil and military security," the office added.
Arévalo's office stressed that Guatemala's Constitution stipulates that foreign military forces can only be deployed in the country if authorized by a two-thirds vote of the national Legislature.
A source from Arévalo's government told El País Thursday on condition of anonymity that the Trump administration has been exerting "great pressure" for two months.
“What they offered us is to select one or two places to bomb and televise everything," the source said. "But we have been clear that this is not going to happen. It cannot operate a US military force in the country, simply because it is unconstitutional."
Arévalo's office said it is seeking US assistance in training, strategic and tactical support, and intelligence sharing, pointing to recent actions against drug trafficking, including the capture of an arsenal in Las Cruces, Petén, the seizure of a narcotics laboratory in Ayutla, San Marcos, and the capture of numerous suspected narco-traffickers.
Asked during a Thursday press conference about the possibility of joint combat operations like those reportedly carried out by US and Ecuadorian forces in the South American nation, Arévalo claimed unfamiliarity with the details of the agreement between those two countries.
Progressive US lawmakers are demanding answers about “reports of serious human rights violations and the bombing of what appear to have been civilian facilities" in Ecuador, including a "dairy and cattle farm with no known links to armed groups or drug trafficking" where unarmed civilians were allegedly tortured.
Arévalo brushed off a suggestion that his request for US cooperation could open the door to human rights violations in Guatemala, telling reporters that "the best defense against any violation of human rights is our respect and commitment to the laws of the republic and to current legislation."
While Guatemala does suffer from serious narco-trafficking issues, many Guatemalans are wary of US intervention, given past meddling including the 1954 CIA-orchestrated overthrow of reformist President Jacobo Árbenz, which was followed by decades of right-wing repression, civil war, and a US-backed genocide against Indigenous Mayan peoples during which around 200,000 people were killed.
In March, the Trump administration lifted longstanding restrictions on arms transfers to Guatemala.
“Now, our soldiers are going to have access to modern technology, radars, night viewfinders," Sáenz told La Hora on Friday.
The defense minister said he discussed closer counter-narcotics cooperation with the United States during the “Shield of the Americas” summit, during which senior officials from over a dozen nations—most of them ruled by right-wing governments—gathered at President Donald Trump's golf resort near Miami.
In addition to Guatemala, the Trump administration has been trying to pressure other Latin American nations into launching joint military operations against narco-traffickers. President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico has vehemently rejected US requests, even as President Donald Trump has threatened "to do something" about cartels in her country.
“The epicenter of cartel violence is not Mexico, it’s the United States,” Sheinbaum defiantly declared in March. “The cartels are fueled by the United States’ demand for drugs and armed with US weapons, and thanks to the United States, they are able to orchestrate enormous bloodshed and chaos throughout Latin America.”
In January, Trump ordered the bombing and invasion of Venezuela, whose president, Nicolás Maduro, was abducted to the United States on dubious "narco-terrorism" allegations that were then significantly walked back.
Trump has also threatened to attack Colombia, Panama, and Cuba, whose people are bracing for what many observers fear is an impending US war. If Trump does order military action against Cuba, it would be the 12th country he's attacked during the course of his two White House terms. Trump also ordered the ongoing bombing campaign targeting boats his administration claims—without providing evidence—were smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. Around 200 people have been killed by the US strikes.
As Nick Turse of The Intercept reported Wednesday:
Trump has turned the Western Hemisphere into a war zone as part of what he and others have called the Donroe Doctrine. This bastardization of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine has been used to justify strikes on civilian boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean; an attack on Venezuela and the abduction of its president; CIA operations in Mexico; joint counter-cartel operations in Ecuador dubbed “Operation Total Extermination”; and increased military and intelligence operations elsewhere in Latin America.
Experts contend that, like the boat strikes, any airstrikes carried out against drug cartels would likely constitute illegal acts of murder, even if conducted with the permission of governments in targeted countries.
“As with the boat strikes, depending on the facts, further attacks could amount to premeditated killings outside of armed conflict, which some of us lawyers would refer to as murder,” former US State Department lawyer Brian Finucane told The New York Times on Thursday.
“Congress never authorized any of these strikes," he added. "So US personnel who participate in these actions could face consequences down the road, after the Trump administration.”
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Mexico Healthcare Transition Provides Model for US
Pretty much every other country in the world has settled on one model for everybody, because it’s cheaper and less convoluted. We could solve a lot of problems in America by following this example.
Apr 19, 2026
In 2026, the US health care system is more costly, more unequal and more unstable than at any point in its history.
Last month, a survey released by the West Health-Gallup Center found that an estimated 28 million Americans (roughly 11%) had skipped meals to afford health care expenses in the last year. “Ambulance deserts” – where emergency services take over 25 minutes to arrive – are rapidly forming across the country, affecting millions of people. With the announcement last year of cuts to Medicaid and the federal government’s failure to extend ACA subsidies, the future looks especially bleak.
At the same time, we’ve seen huge increases in profits for insurance companies and hospitals. Greed and short-sighted pursuit of profits have brought American health care to the breaking point. This is a man-made natural disaster.
The US system is an outlier on the world stage in a number of important ways. For one, we’re the only developed country that doesn’t provide universal health care. Every one of our peer nations has some form of basic coverage for all citizens – the U.K., Canada, France, Japan, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia… We’re the only ones that decided to leave a significant percentage of the population (generally around 8%) without any coverage whatsoever.
American health care is also, by far, the most expensive in the world. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), we have roughly twice the per-capita health care costs of other wealthy nations, yet some of the worst outcomes. We consistently under-perform in areas like life expectancy, infant mortality and deaths from treatable diseases.
According to a study conducted in 2020 by Yale epidemiologists for the medical journal The Lancet, a universal health care system in the US would prevent around 68,000 unnecessary deaths per year. These are people who die from preventable diseases, simply because they don’t have access to health insurance. If they lived in any other country in the developed world, they’d survive.
Mexico, another country where coverage has historically been less-than-total, announced last week that they will be implementing a universal health service designed to guarantee access to health care for the entire population. As Mexico moves forward with its initiative, it may provide a model for how the US can repair our dysfunctional, fragmented system. Mexico’s decree unifies three fragmented public systems (IMSS, ISSSTE, IMSS-Bienestar, taking a patchwork model and consolidating it into one program to prevent unnecessary duplication of costs. Hopefully, we can learn from both their successes and their mistakes.
America also has a patchwork model, combining elements of several different approaches to health care. For working people under 65, we have employer-provided private insurance. For veterans and military personnel, we have the V.A. (Veteran Affairs). For the over-65 population and people with certain disabilities, we have Medicare. For people below the poverty line, we have Medicaid. And for those without any health insurance at all, we have out-of-pocket payments. Pretty much every other country in the world has settled on one model for everybody, because it’s cheaper and less convoluted. A unified system is the best tool for cost control. We could solve a lot of problems in America by following this example.
A majority of Americans favor a universal health care system. This would increase equality of access, bring down costs and help to resolve one of the greatest inequities in American life, something which separates us from the rest of the developed world and which has increasingly become unsustainable in recent years. If the status quo is maintained, health care costs will continue to rise, patients will continue to avoid care because they can’t afford it and for-profit companies will continue to find ways to pass the costs on to patients, even if it bankrupts or kills them.
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As Trump Pushes Privatization, Mexico's Sheinbaum Embraces Healthcare as a Human Right
Healthcare is neither a commodity nor the exclusive privilege of the wealthy—it is a human right. Far from “outrageous,” guaranteeing healthcare to all is about ensuring that everyone can live a rich and fulfilling life.
Apr 15, 2026
On April 6, the Trump administration announced it will increase payments to privately-run Medicare Advantage, or MA, plans by 2.48% in 2027—this will result in more than $13 billion in additional payments to companies like UnitedHealth, CVS Health, and Humana. Unsurprisingly, following this announcement, shares of those companies rose by more than 9%.
MA plans have been a significant source of growth and profit for insurance companies. As the Medicare Rights Center reports, this profitability is driven by enormous overpayments, including from fraudulent billing practices such as “upcoding.” This involves submitting billing codes that make patients appear sicker than they really are to secure higher government payments than are warranted. Despite this, the Trump administration is currently considering a policy that would automatically enroll seniors into MA plans as the “default enrollment option”—a proposal outlined in the Heritage Foundation’s extremist Project 2025.
The Center for American Progress estimates that making MA the default option would generate nearly $2 trillion in overpayments over 10 years, while significantly jeopardizing traditional Medicare’s financial stability. It would give for-profit corporations more control to restrict patient choices and deny doctor-recommended care.
Instead of more privatization that puts profits over people, we should embrace Medicare For All (M4A). Yet, President Donald Trump contends that paying for our current safety nets is already too much for the wealthiest nation on Earth. He remarks: “It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country.”
Sheinbaum’s embrace of universal healthcare—as well as her support of Cuba—shows us what is possible when the well-being of people is championed unconditionally.
For Trump, spending billions in an illegal war takes precedence over providing healthcare for Americans. His 2027 budget calls for a 10% reduction in all nondefense spending, including reducing funding to the Department of Health and Human Services by $15.8 billion. This, at the same time, that a measles outbreak sweeps the nation, uninsured rates continue to climb, and the prevalence of children with chronic conditions grows to unprecedented levels.
While Trump prioritizes death and destruction, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum offers a different vision. On April 7, she issued a presidential decree establishing the Universal Health Service (Servicio Universal de Salud), which will allow patients from across Mexico to seek free care at any public health institution. Universal access will be rolled out in phases starting with emergency care and continuity of care in early 2027. Radiotherapy, laboratory tests, imaging studies, and other specialized services will be added later that year. Finally, in 2028, universal prescription fulfillment and hospitalization will be consolidated. For Sheinbaum, “The goal is that when we leave the government [in 2030], any Mexican man or woman can go to any health institution for treatment for any ailment and be received.”
The transition to universal healthcare began on April 13 when Mexicans aged 85 and older were eligible to register for their new Universal Health Credential. As Deputy Health Minister Eduardo Clark notes, these new credentials are “the guarantee of the right to healthcare” for Mexican citizens and eligible foreign residents.
This is the fundamental difference. In Mexico, healthcare is recognized as a human right enshrined in their Constitution. In 2023, then-Secretary of Foreign Affairs Alicia Bárcena said before the United Nations General Assembly, “In Mexico, we believe that coverage must be universal, public and free, starting with the most marginalized areas and prioritizing, as always, the poorest.” She continued: “It is unacceptable to profit from illness. In Mexico, we know that public health is not for sale. It is a public and universal good, and we defend it."
By contrast, for Trump, healthcare is a privilege meant solely for those who deserve it. During his first presidential campaign, he remarked: “Where I come from, you have to prove your worth. You have some guy with no college degree working a minimum wage job; no ambition, no goals, nothing to show for it. Yet for some reason, the current [Obama] administration believes he—and millions of people like him, should have access to health insurance. It’s outrageous.” While Mexico starts with “the poorest,” Trump finds it “outrageous” to provide healthcare to minimum wage workers.
Trump’s position is immoral and vile. Healthcare is neither a commodity nor the exclusive privilege of the wealthy—it is a human right. Far from “outrageous,” guaranteeing healthcare to all is about ensuring that everyone can live a rich and fulfilling life.
For most (if not everyone), lacking healthcare will prevent them from living the kind of life they desire. Those suffering from untreated illness may struggle to spend time with their loved ones, pursue the opportunities they desire, and exercise their political rights. Since, at some point, everyone will eventually get sick, healthcare is a universal good that benefits each of us. Moreover, as the Covid-19 pandemic made clear, our individual health is not solely a personal issue. My health impacts the lives of others around me just as their health impacts mine. Healthcare is thus a collective and communal good.
Still, one might object that even if healthcare is not a commodity, the market is still the best mechanism to allocate scarce resources; Trump’s push toward privatization will be better than Sheinbaum’s universal care.
Such blind faith in the market is misguided. Despite spending far more than other countries with universal coverage, more than a quarter of Americans report skipping consultations, tests, treatments and follow-ups because of costs. Roughly 21% report skipping medication for the same reason. Studies consistently find that universal care provides more access, better quality, and lower costs than privatized healthcare.
Ironically, Trump once understood this. In his 2000 The America We Deserve, he writes, “We must have universal healthcare. Just imagine the improved quality of life for our society as a whole if the issue of access to healthcare were dealt with imaginatively. With more than 40 million Americans living day to day in the fear that an illness or injury will wipe out their savings or drag them into bankruptcy, how can we truly engage in the ‘pursuit of happiness’ as our Founders intended?”
Trump was right. What we need is not more privatization that exploits the sick and dying, but rather a politic that works to radically defend life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. What is needed is the imagination to rethink how we use (and misuse) our country’s wealth and resources. Sheinbaum’s embrace of universal healthcare—as well as her support of Cuba—shows us what is possible when the well-being of people is championed unconditionally.
A better future is possible—already, in the US, support for M4A continues to grow, and several 2026 midterm candidates have made it an explicit part of their platforms. Together, by embracing life and rejecting capitalism, we can make America great.
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As Mexico Enacts Universal Healthcare, Advocate Says Insurers' 'Stranglehold' Is Moving US in 'Opposite Direction'
Medicare for All advocate Wendell Potter said it's "both inspiring and frustrating" to see other nations advance their public healthcare systems while the US dismantles its own.
Apr 10, 2026
As Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum moves forward with a plan to enact universal healthcare for her country’s more than 130 million people, a longtime advocate for Medicare for All in the US called the development “both inspiring and frustrating.”
"Inspiring because it shows what is possible," Wendell Potter, a former insurance company communications director who has become a leading critic of the industry, told Common Dreams. "Frustrating because here in the US we are going in the opposite direction."
Earlier this week, Sheinbaum announced a decree that she called "a historic step" for Mexico.
Beginning in 2027, her government plans to unify Mexico's public health institutions into a single Universal Health Service, allowing patients across the country to receive care from the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), the Social Security Institute and Social Services of Workers of the State (ISSSTE), and the IMSS‑Bienestar program, which provides free services to those without employer-provided insurance.
According to TeleSur, universal access would be rolled out gradually, with universal emergency care and continuity of treatment, free of financial constraints, beginning in January. Specialized services such as radiotherapy, laboratory tests, and imaging studies would be phased in later that year, and universal prescription fulfillment and hospitalization would also be added to the program in 2028.
"The goal is that when we leave the government [in 2030], any Mexican man or woman can go to any health institution for treatment for any ailment and be received," Sheinbaum said.
Mexico has expanded its annual healthcare budget in recent years, but Sheinbaum's government hopes that consolidating all of Mexico's health services into a single program will eliminate bureaucratic bloat and create a more cost-effective system that saves money over time.
Potter described the plan as “just another example of countries around the world lapping the US when it comes to healthcare policy.”
While tens of millions more previously uninsured Mexicans have become eligible for free care under the healthcare expansion efforts of Sheinbaum and her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the US under President Donald Trump is in the process of shredding public healthcare programs and subsidies.
Following the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law by Trump last year, 11.8 million Americans are expected to lose Medicaid and other coverage, and more than 20 million are projected to see higher premiums after insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act were allowed to expire.
"Due to the stranglehold Big Insurance has on too many politicians in this country, instead of expanding care and lowering costs, we are simply helping Big Insurance make more and more money," Potter said. "It is totally backwards."
"We must continue to keep Medicare for All as our north star here. But also acknowledge the reality that we need to change so much about our current political environment to make it possible," he said. "And that has to start with breaking up Big Insurance's stranglehold on Washington."
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Amid Threats of US Attack, Sheinbaum Tells Trump to Get a Grip on Illegal Guns, Drugs
“The cartels are fueled by the United States’ demand for drugs and armed with US weapons, and thanks to the United States, they are able to orchestrate enormous bloodshed and chaos," said Mexico's president.
Mar 09, 2026
Amid months of threats by US leaders to attack drug gangs in Mexico, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum slapped back Monday against President Donald Trump's assertion that her country is the "epicenter" of cartel violence by urging him to stem the flow of illegal arms across the border—and domestic demand for illicit narcotics.
“If the flow of illegal weapons from the United States into Mexico were stopped, these groups wouldn’t have access to this type of high-powered weaponry to carry out their criminal activities,” Sheinabum said during her daily press briefing, citing a 2025 US Department of Justice report showing that approximately 3 in 4 guns used by Mexican criminal organizations were illicitly trafficked across the international border.
“There’s a very important aspect that needs to be addressed, which is reducing drug use in the United States,” she added.
In a separate interview with W Radio, Sheinbaum took aim at Trump's Saturday speech at his so-called "Shield of the Americas" summit with mostly right-wing Latin American leaders, during which he called Mexico the "epicenter of cartel violence" and announced a "brand-new military coalition" to tackle drug gangs.
“The epicenter of cartel violence is not Mexico, it’s the United States,” she said. “The cartels are fueled by the United States’ demand for drugs and armed with US weapons, and thanks to the United States, they are able to orchestrate enormous bloodshed and chaos throughout Latin America.”
In the latest in a series of threats to attack criminal organizations in Mexico—a scenario vehemently opposed by the Mexican government and most Mexicans—Trump said Saturday that allied right-wing Latin American governments have made “a commitment to using lethal military force to destroy the sinister cartels and terrorist networks.”
Mexicans are wary of US interventions, having lost half their national territory to the United States in an 1846-48 war that two US presidents—Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant—said was waged under false pretext to conquer territory and expand slavery. The US also invaded and briefly occupied the port city of Veracruz in 1914 and launched a punitive invasion targeting the revolutionary Pancho Villa's forces in 1916-17.
Sheinbaum's remarks came after Mexican troops, supported by US intelligence, killed Jalisco New Generation Cartel chief Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes—known as “El Mencho”—during a raid last month. The operation sparked a wave of retaliatory cartel violence in some Mexican states.
Mexico has also arrested hundreds of suspected drug traffickers, destroyed numerous secret narcotics labs, and handed over dozens of alleged cartel criminals to US authorities in recent months.
Last year, the US Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Mexican government against US gun manufacturers, unanimously ruling that Mexico did not plausibly show the companies aided and abetted illegal arms sales.
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Can Sheinbaum Avoid A Death Spiral After the El Mencho Killing?
On one hand, demonstrating the ability to confront organized crime may help counter the narrative that progressive governments are soft on violence. On the other, history suggests that decapitation strategies rarely defeat cartels.
Mar 04, 2026
On February 22, 2026, Mexican special forces in Tapalpa, Jalisco, authorized by left-wing President Claudia Sheinbaum and acting on intelligence from the US military, killed Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, Nom de Guerre “El Mencho,” the 59-year-old leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the most-wanted man in Mexico.
Within hours, the cartel put up roadblocks, arson attacks, and running gun battles across a dozen states, ravaging Tapalpa and other cities. By the time the violence subsided, over 70 people were dead, including 25 Mexican National Guard troops. The entire country is holding its breath as it prepares to enter a new phase of its decades-long Drug War.
Does decapitating a cartel end the Drug War?
The operation was also the culmination of a strategy that Claudia Sheinbaum's predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, had promised to abandon, namely, the militarized war on drugs that since 2006 has left between 350,000 and 400,000 Mexicans dead and more than 130,000 disappeared. Instead, while making some initial welcome gestures, he militarized the Southern Border, created the National Guard, and continued the War on Drugs.
Removing El Mencho may weaken CJNG in the short term. But it could also ignite the next phase of Mexico’s drug war, one that extends far beyond the country’s borders and deeper into the Western Hemisphere.
The Mexican drug war has never been Mexico's responsibility alone. It is the product of an insatiable American thirst for drugs that has only intensified with the opioid crisis, as fentanyl has flooded US streets, claiming tens of thousands of lives annually, with support from Big Pharma. The United States remains the world’s largest consumer market for narcotics; American demand generates billions of dollars annually for trafficking organizations.
Mexican cartels such as the CJNG and the Sinaloa Cartel now supply fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin to a US market whose demand keeps increasing, according to new reporting.
American guns are also at the center of this crisis. There are exactly two legal gun stores in all of Mexico, operating under strict military supervision. Across the border, in the four US border states, there are more than 9,000 legal gun sale points.
An estimated 250,000 to 500,000 guns are trafficked from the United States into Mexico each year. Roughly 70% originate north of the border. These include .50-caliber rifles capable of piercing armored vehicles and downing helicopters; many of them were from the American military. A new raid on a CNJG ammo depot revealed that 47% of the ammunition came directly from one US Army plant in Kansas City. That very same ammo was used to kill 13 police officers in Michoacán in 2019.
The CJNG now dominates 23 out of Mexico’s 32 states, with operations stretching from the Pacific Coast all the way to the Northern border. The cartel's estimated worth exceeds $20 billion, drawn not only from drugs but from a diversified portfolio of extortion, petroleum theft, human trafficking, and kidnapping.
It has used extreme force and military-level tactical planning against its rivals, including the state itself. In 2015, it shot down a Mexican military helicopter in Jalisco. It has assassinated mayors, attacked police convoys with improvised armored vehicles, and used drones and explosives against state security forces.
Internally, polls suggest support for the operation is between 80 and 90%. After years of feeling helpless before cartel violence, many Mexicans welcome any action that produces “results.” With this, we see the rise of “penal populism” across Latin America, where electorates increasingly embrace tough-on-crime approaches, even when those approaches destroy democracy and human rights.
The high popularity of El Salvador's right-wing dictator Nayib Bukele, whose approval ratings have hovered around 90%, testifies to the political appeal of iron-fist tactics, regardless of their clear governance costs. Bukele's mass incarceration model, where tens of thousands have been jailed without due process in inhumane conditions where torture is common, has become a model that politicians across the region now invoke, including in Honduras, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Peru.
That comes despite his success being predicated on secret deals with gangs, not on a War on Drugs—most countries that have tried his militarized tactics have suffered increases in the violent crime and homicide rates, at the same time as their economies have become increasingly unequal and democratic societies have cratered.
Externally, President Donald Trump has made clear his view that “cartels are runnning Mexico” and that Sheinbaum and other Latin American leaders should go to war with them, otherwise he will do it for them. His administration has designated Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and considered military intervention in Mexico. A US intervention would be disastrous for both Mexico and Sheinbaum, so the El Mencho operation is the price they settled on.
To add insult to injury, this summer, Mexico will host numerous World Cup matches, including four in Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state. The Sheinbaum government is trying to give the allure of tightening security ahead of the games.
She has modeled aspects of her approach on Brazil. Before the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, Rio de Janeiro launched aggressive “pacification” campaigns in favelas, military occupations that temporarily suppressed violence but failed to address its roots while killing high rates of civilians and eroding civil liberties. The War on Drugs has not stopped there, either. We have to wait and see if Mexico follows this tragic pattern.
Across Latin America, the right has successfully framed security as a question of toughness versus weakness, where, as Bukele would put it, “All the gangs know is violence,” and thus must be met with violence. This framing leaves progressive governments perpetually on the defensive, forced to prove their bravado by adopting policies that at the very least, in theory, fly in the face of leftist principles.
The left's consistent (and successful) approach, emphasizing socioeconomic development, public health interventions, drug decriminalization, negotiation, and targeted intelligence rather than mass militarization, has struggled to gain traction in a climate driven by right-wing narratives and fearmongering.
The fundamental problem is that leftist programs take years to bear actual results, while voters demand immediate security. The right, meanwhile, offers quick and strong-handed solutions that reassure voters. It is harder to kill monsters with microloan programs and harm reduction clinics than with tanks and M-16s.
When Former Mexican President Felipe Calderón launched his war on drugs in 2006, he targeted the Gulf Cartel and its armed wing, Los Zetas. The kingpin strategy eliminates cartel leaders, but each decapitation meant groups splintered, and each splintering produced more violence, creating an endless loop of violence until neoliberal President Enrique Peña Nieto was able to sign pacts with certain gangs before resuming the military approach.
During this period, the number of major cartels grew from about half a dozen to more than 200, operating across the country and the entire world. The homicide rate tripled, while many border cities have homicide rates well over 100 per 100,000. Now, hundreds of thousands are dead as a direct result.
Mexico finds itself once again at this crossroads, where it must choose wisely. El Mencho’s bras droit, “El Tuli,” was killed in a clash with security forces hours after. But, the pattern suggests that new leaders will emerge, and the violence will continue. Cartels are resilient, and can adapt to new leadership, new business structures, and market forces very reactively. Taking out one leader, or even the drug trade, won’t put them out of business.
Left-wing governments have struggled to respond without appearing weak. Some voices, particularly those outside of direct political power like academics, human rights advocates, and a few leftist intellectuals, have pointed out the dangers of returning to kingpin strategies, the inevitability of retaliation, and the way military operations invariably claim civilian lives.
So far, however, the Sheinbaum coalition and the left in Mexico have, for the most part, supported the operation, praying that embracing these shows of force can help the left reclaim dominance over the security debate. But, ceding ground to the right on security might risk alienating the rest of the left; shifting the Overton window to the right; and making politics, rather than policy solutions, determine the direction of Mexico’s Drug War.
Sheinbaum’s operation thus creates a profound paradox.
On one hand, demonstrating the ability to confront organized crime may help counter the narrative that progressive governments are soft on violence. On the other, history suggests that decapitation strategies rarely defeat cartels.
Removing El Mencho may weaken CJNG in the short term. But it could also ignite the next phase of Mexico’s drug war, one that extends far beyond the country’s borders and deeper into the Western Hemisphere.
Can you win the politics of security without reproducing the failures of the war on drugs? It may buy Sheinbaum and the left time to continue expanding the welfare state, strengthening institutions, and foolproof Mexican democracy, but it may also open the door for further weaponization of security to destroy that very progress later on.
The better alternative may be to instead embrace a true leftist, principled defense of nonviolent solutions, or, to theoretically and politically justify a security progressivism. Such will be the test of the Latin American left in the wake of rising right-wing populism on the back of security fears.
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US-Backed Killing of Cartel Boss Unleashes Wave of Violence Across Mexico
The killing of Mexico's top cartel leader, known as "El Mencho," has created a power struggle that "could plunge Mexico into almost record levels of violence," said one expert.
Feb 23, 2026
With support from the US, Mexican security forces killed one of the nation's most powerful cartel bosses on Sunday. Almost immediately, the country descended into violence and chaos.
The killing of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes—known as "El Mencho"—has set off a violent power struggle within the organization he led, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), which has left civilians caught in the crossfire.
As NBC News reported on Sunday evening:
Cars set on fire by cartel members blocked roads in nearly a dozen Mexican states and left smoke billowing into the air. Jalisco’s capital, Guadalajara, was turned into a ghost town Sunday night as civilians hunkered down. Later, authorities announced they had cleared most of the more than 250 cartel roadblocks across 20 states.
Several Mexican states canceled school Monday, and local and foreign governments warned citizens to stay inside as violence erupted.
The sudden outbreak of violence has created a state of terror for many ordinary people in Mexico. One Guadalajara resident, Maria Medina, told Agence France-Presse that men with guns showed up at the gas station where she works, ordered everyone to leave, and set the building on fire.
"I thought they were going to kidnap us. I ran to a taco stand to take cover with the people there," Medina said.
The US State Department has urged Americans in parts of Mexico to “seek shelter and remain in residences or hotels.” Many flights out of the country have been canceled, leaving tourists stranded.
Visitors at the popular Jalisco beach resort of Puerto Vallarta have been forced into hiding as gunmen have taken over the streets.
One father in Seattle told the local news station Fox 13 that he received frightened texts from his daughter, who was visiting the area, around 3:30 in the afternoon, describing the chaos.
“The text she sent, talking about, ‘The whole city is on fire, and we are hiding at home,'" he said. "'The cartel are outside right now watching the citizens and making sure the military does not come in. The police are not here to help. We are hiding.’“
According to one open-source effort to map the fallout, at least 19 of Mexico's 32 states had seen outbreaks of violence as of Sunday evening.
So far, no civilian deaths have been confirmed. However, according to the Associated Press, at least 25 members of the National Guard have been killed since El Mencho's death.
United States forces were not reportedly involved in the operation that led to El Mencho's death. However, US fingerprints are all over the attack.
In a statement on Sunday night, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the US "provided intelligence support to the Mexican government in order to assist with an operation" in which El Mencho was killed.
She added that "President [Donald] Trump has been very clear—the United States will ensure narcoterrorists sending deadly drugs to our homeland are forced to face the wrath of justice they have long deserved."
The attack comes after months of threats from Trump to use US military force to take out cartel leaders, against the wishes of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.
At a press conference on Monday, Sheinbaum said that despite the previous day's chaos, "the country is at peace."
"We awoke today with no blockades,” she said. “All activity has practically been reestablished.”
Several news outlets have described the killing of El Mencho as a direct response to US sabre-rattling, which has ramped up following last month's operation to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
El Mencho, who founded CJNG around 2010, has been "public enemy number one" for the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) for nearly a decade, for his role in turning the cartel into a hyper-violent organization that coordinated global drug operations.
While CJNG has been considered one of the largest suppliers of Mexican fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine to the US—even greater than the more famous Sinaloa Cartel—experts say it’s unlikely that the killing of its 59-year-old kingpin will do much to solve the problem.
"What we've seen in the past is that the removal of the kingpin doesn't necessarily affect significant network disruption," Anthea McCarthy-Jones, an expert in Latin America at the University of New South Wales, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "The removal of the leader doesn't have any impact on the day-to-day relations and the relationships that facilitate this kind of global drug trafficking operation."
US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau boasted that taking out “one of the bloodiest and most ruthless drug kingpins” was “a great development for Mexico, the US, Latin America, and the world."
But David Mora, the senior Mexico analyst at the International Crisis Group (ICG), said it will likely trigger more instability.
"In the absence of a direct succession, a power vacuum is created that opens the door to violent realignments within the organization," Mora told AFP.
Chris Dalby, an organized crime expert who has written a book about the Jalisco cartel, told The Guardian that this power struggle could culminate in a full-scale civil war if no successor emerges to fill El Mencho's shoes.
“If no one can, if the CJNG finally splinters, you have four or five different lieutenants with the manpower, the weaponry, and the criminal empires to build their own fiefdoms—and that could plunge Mexico into almost record levels of violence," said Dalby.
The explosion of violence and instability following the death of just one cartel leader has mirrored what critics warned may follow if the US attempted to bring about the “total elimination” of drug cartels using airstrikes and special operations forces.
"At best, US military strikes in Mexico will weaken the cartels over the short term," wrote fellows Daniel DePetris and Christopher McCallion in a July paper for the think tank Defense Priorities. "At worst, they will cause the cartels to splinter even further, spiking the level of violence, straining the Mexican government’s military resources, and causing significant blowback against Americans in both Mexico and the United States."
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