Border Report: Mexico Returns to Tough-on-Organized-Crime Approach Under US Pressure

What does the United States blowing up Venezuelan ships mean for Mexico?

That question surfaced in two recent webinars put on by the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at University of California San Diego, most recently on Friday. 

The United States has carried out at least a half dozen strikes against boats in the Caribbean with President Donald Trump and his team claiming they are going after drug vessels. The United States is also pressuring Mexico to do more to bring down cartels, and it designated them as terrorist groups. Trump has at times said he might use U.S. military troops against cartels.  

Those strikes have one message for Mexico and other countries: “Look what can happen to you if you don’t get your act together,” said Rafael Fernández de Castro, director of the UC San Diego center, during a virtual panel on Friday.  

Even if Mexico tries to get its act together, he said, the situation will remain complicated.

“If we couldn’t stop marijuana, if we couldn’t stop cocaine, stopping fentanyl will be more difficult,” Fernández de Castro said.

Co-hosted by UC San Diego’s center, Harvard University’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and the Mexican Council on International Relations or COMEXI, Friday’s panel included Sophia Huett Lopez from COMEXI, Gema Kloppe-Santamaria from University College Cork, Vidal Romero from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México and Eduardo Guerrero from Lantia Consultores and COMEXI.

Yes, but: Many of the speakers seemed to agree that current Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has taken a more forceful approach to dealing with organized crime than her immediate predecessors. 

Gone, they said, are the days of “abrazos, no balazos” or “hugs, not bullets” — one of the slogans of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is in the same political party as Sheinbaum. 

Guerrero said Sheinbaum’s strategy was similar to the administration of former President Felipe Calderón and less like those of both Lopez Obrador and former President Enrique Peña Nieto. 

“In those two governments, what I perceived was a more complacent strategy, and more negotiating with organized crime,” Guerrero said in Spanish.

In less than a year, Sheinbaum’s government has made nearly tripled the number of high profile arrests that Lopez Obrador’s government made in six years, he said.

Guerrero said Sheinbaum is using more sophisticated tools in her attacks on the cartels than Calderón, which he said comes from Mexico’s increased experience dealing with organized crime as well as increased coordination and cooperation across agencies — and with the United States.

Previously, Huett Lopez said, the various states in Mexico had more autonomy in what crimes they pursued for prosecution. Now, the approach is more nationally driven.

“There is a great support for the president so that, without regard for political party, there are effectively these strong hits,” Huett Lopez said.

Romero cautioned that while the various levels of government focus on going after organized crime — and the number of homicides has fallen — other kinds of crime are rising and going unaddressed. He listed robbery, extortion and fraud among them.

“The narrative they have sold us since Calderón is, ‘So, we captured someone. We’re winning. If we start, we’re winning,’” Romero said in Spanish. “I think that will not really take us to peace in this country, not in terms of security.”

He said that there was no way for Mexico to stop drug-trafficking, and he added that even though fentanyl is now also produced inside the United States, Mexico still receives all of the blame for the drug.

He said the only real solution is legalization and regulation, but he acknowledged that would be politically complicated.

Kloppe-Santamaria said that Mexico focuses on measuring success in how many arrests its officials have made or how many drugs they have seized, but that doesn’t measure how safe the people who live there feel.

She said disappearances are on the rise and need to be addressed.

Guerrero said Mexico should work toward a North American treaty on security.

“If we sleep in Mexico and don’t take this initiative and promote it, we will have, in a decade, instead of one state like Guerrero — which is the biggest disaster in the country — five states like Guerrero, because several are on that path.”

Thank you for reading. I’m open for tips, suggestions and feedback on Instagram @katemorrisseyjournalist and on X/Twitter and Bluesky @bgirledukate.

In Other News

Not guilty: After less than two hours of deliberation, a jury found former Border Patrol Agent Juan Angel Prishker not guilty of false imprisonment by violence or menace or of sexual battery by restraint, Sofía Mejías-Pascoe reported for inewsource.

Recalendared: The Trump administration is putting thousands of immigration cases back on judges’ dockets after they were administratively closed more than a decade ago to focus on other priorities, Mike Dorfman, Meredith Royster, Lucia Walinchus and Shelby Bremer reported for NBC 7.

Drone attack: Three drones bombed the state attorney general’s office in Tijuana on Wednesday night, Alexandra Mendoza reported for The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Increased arrests: I reported for Daylight San Diego that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are detaining more people who come for appointments to their office at the federal building, in addition to people who come for court hearings. I created a guide based on advice from attorneys, human rights observers and volunteers about what to do if you or a loved one has an upcoming court hearing or check-in with ICE.

Deported father: Shelby Bremer reported for NBC 7 that the father of a U.S. Marine recently deported to Mexico says ICE took him under a case of mistaken identity.

License plate data: Officials in other parts of the country have accessed El Cajon’s license plate reader data to perform immigration-related searches, Gustavo Solis reported for KPBS.

Strip searches: For Capital & Main and Beyond the Border News, I reported that people at Otay Mesa Detention Center face strip searches after in-person visitation from loved ones.

A Mass for migrants: Bishops from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border gathered in San Luis Río Colorado for a bilingual Mass and to express renewed commitment to serving migrants, KAWC reported.

More SENTRI lanes: Siempre En Las Noticias and Tijuana journalist Yolanda Morales both reported on Instagram that Customs and Border Protection is planning to add SENTRI lanes at the San Ysidro Port of Entry accessible from a new route through Calle Segunda. 

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