Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has stepped up enforcement efforts at the U.S. border since her October 2024 inauguration. AFP/GETTY IMAGES
THE WATCH STAFF
Mexican security forces seized a record amount of fentanyl in a series of operations in December 2024 targeting the Sinaloa drug cartel, which has taken a large role in production of the narcotic. Authorities announced the capture of 1,110 kilograms of fentanyl, the equivalent of about 20 million doses of the deadly drug, in two separate actions. These interdictions also resulted in the arrest of two Sinaloa fentanyl cell leaders as well as chemical precursors, scales and mixers, according to the Mexican government. The interdictions are the latest in Mexico’s stepped-up counternarcotics efforts since President Claudia Sheinbaum assumed office in October.
Sheinbaum’s performance in helping to secure the Mexico-U.S. border has drawn notice. A recent report in The New York Times portrayed the operations, which took $400 million worth of fentanyl out of the supply chain, as the “latest show of force in a crackdown on violence and illicit drugs by Mexico’s new president.” Sheinbaum’s security minister, Omar Garcìa Harfuch, who had success in reducing violence and crime in Mexico City during his tenure as head of the directorate of citizen security from 2019 to 2023, has vowed to apply similar intelligence gathering tactics to the cartels. “These actions will continue until the violence in the state of Sinaloa decreases,” said Garcìa Harfuch, according to the Times. In the first two months of Sheinbaum’s administration, authorities have arrested more than 5,300 people and seized nearly 58 tons of drugs — including the equivalent of 50 million doses of fentanyl. Security analysts quoted by the Times assessed Sheinbaum’s selection of Garcìa Harfuch and her willingness to take on a bloody battle with the Sinaloa cartel as indications that her security policy, including at the border, will depart from the stance of her predecessor, Andrès Manuel López Obrador.
A week after her inauguration, Sheinbaum unveiled a “four pillar” approach to national security: attention to the root causes of crime; consolidation of the National Guard; strengthening intelligence and investigative practices; and ‘absolute’ coordination within the federal government’s security cabinet and state authorities, according to Mexico News Daily, an English-language news website. She has also promised to continue prioritizing resources and outreach to poor families whose members are most vulnerable to gang violence or recruitment, the news site reported.
In recent public comments about the border, Sheinbaum noted that encounters with unauthorized migrants have dropped by two-thirds to 100,000 in the 10 months preceding September 2024. The increased efforts by Mexico to deter large-scale migrant caravans have also helped ease the pressure on both sides of the international boundary. An agreement between the U.S. and the AMLO administration in December 2023 led to a sustained significant reduction in migrant encounters by U.S. Border Patrol agents. In a late November 2024 social media post on X, Sheinbaum said her border policy would be a “comprehensive strategy that Mexico has followed to address the migration phenomenon, respecting human rights,” she posted.