Mexico will discuss drug trafficking and migrant deaths during visit by US security official Mullin

MEXICO CITY (AP) — President Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday that she hopes to strengthen bilateral security cooperation during U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s visit to Mexico, including on issues of combating drug trafficking, migrant smuggling and arms trafficking, and to facilitate intelligence sharing.

Mullin arrives in the capital for a two-day visit following tensions in recent weeks over the deaths of two CIA agents at Mexico’s northern border and U.S. drug trafficking indictments against 10 Mexican officials.

Sheinbaum’s administration, which took office in October 2024, has toed a fine line with the Trump administration as it has emphasized bilateral cooperation, while also maintaining Mexico’s sovereignty in the face of threats of U.S. military intervention.

“What we want is for us to continue working within the framework of that (security) understanding,” Sheinbaum said at her morning news conference, referring to past dialogues with the Trump administration.

Mullin, who assumed the position in March after Kristi Noem’s departure, is also scheduled to meet with Mexico’s Security Cabinet.

Sheinbaum said Thursday that she would also speak with Mullin about the 15 Mexican migrants who have died in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers since 2025, which prompted diplomatic protests from her government. Sheinbaum has instructed consulates to make daily visits to the detention centers, and Mexico announced in March that it would bring the cases before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

The Mexican president ruled out discussing the cases of the 10 indicted officials, some of whom belong to the governing Morena party, during her meeting with Mullin.

In late April, the New York Attorney General’s office indicted Sinaloa Gov. Rubén Rocha, Culiacan mayor Juan de Dios Gámez, and eight other active and retired officials on charges including drug trafficking and illegal possession of firearms.

Rocha and Gámez temporarily stepped down from their posts to facilitate the investigation opened by Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office, while the former Sinaloa government officials, Gerardo Mérida and Enrique Díaz, surrendered to U.S. authorities last week.

Bilateral relations became strained after the deaths of two CIA agents on April 19, along with two officials from the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office, when the vehicle they were traveling in plunged into a ravine in the mountains between Chihuahua — which borders Texas — and the state of Sinaloa, where a clandestine synthetic drug lab had been dismantled.

The incident prompted a formal protest from the Sheinbaum administration to Washington that it hadn’t been informed of the presence of the two U.S. agents in Mexico, or of their activities in the opposition-governed state of Chihuahua.

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