Drug Traffickers Extradited to the U.S. Challenge Legal Mechanism for Their Expulsion in Mexican Courts

In the early hours of February 27, 2025, at Federal Social Rehabilitation Center No. 1—known as “El Altiplano”—inmates began to be removed with great stealth.

No one had anticipated what was unfolding, for never before had the Technical Secretary of the National Security Council signed—with barely a few hours’ notice—an official directive containing “confidential, immediate, and urgent” instructions to transfer and hand over a list of prisoners to U.S. authorities.

It wasn’t an extradition. It was a handover carried out under the National Security Law.

The following day, then-Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero and Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch confirmed in a press conference that 29 individuals had been removed from the country. “They were not extradited,” they made clear. They had been “sent.”

And that initial operation would prove to be merely the beginning of something on a far grander scale. On August 12, 2025, another 26 inmates were sent out. In January 2026, another 37 followed.

In total, 92 individuals linked to cartels, drug trafficking, money laundering, arms trafficking, and other serious crimes were transferred to the United States across three distinct operations—all carried out under the same legal framework.

MILENIO reviewed the proceedings and found that in 14 instances, the individuals expelled—or their attorneys—attempted to challenge their removal before Mexican judges. Some pursued their legal battle from U.S. soil. One even petitioned the Mexican government to facilitate his return to the country. None have prevailed thus far.

A Way Out Without Extradition

To understand why the government resorted to the National Security Law, one must look at the political context of the time.

When Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, he immediately pressured Mexico. He threatened to designate Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations, to impose tariffs on export goods, and to deploy military forces onto Mexican soil if Sheinbaum failed to demonstrate concrete results in security matters.

The problem for Mexico was that several of the accused individuals Washington was demanding had already spent years fighting their extradition in the courts.

Some had obtained court injunctions expressly prohibiting their removal from the country. An ordinary extradition process would have taken several more years.

The solution the government found was to declare that these individuals posed a threat to Mexico’s national security. Based on this argument, the National Security Council—comprising the Secretaries of the Interior, Defense, Navy, Security, and Foreign Affairs—ordered their handover to Washington.

Never before had this legal mechanism—that of National Security—been used to transfer individuals to another country. The practical outcome was identical to that of an extradition: removing them from Mexico to face justice in the United States. This handover on national security grounds bypassed all the legal safeguards and procedural hurdles mandated by an ordinary extradition process.

El Z-40: Injunction in Force, Yet Still Handed Over

This newspaper has found that high-ranking drug traffickers continue to challenge—from within the United States—what they view as an arbitrary act on the part of the Mexican authorities. One such individual is Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, the former leader of the Zetas Cartel known as “El Z-40,” who had spent years fighting his extradition while incarcerated at the Altiplano maximum-security prison. He even argued that he was not, in fact, the person the State was accusing of these grave crimes.

Although the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs (SRE) had formally authorized his extradition in August 2023, El Z-40’s defense team successfully obtained a court injunction the following month, ordering that he remain in Mexico under the jurisdiction of the court. The proceedings remained open and contested when the order from the National Security Council arrived.

Once he had been sent to the United States, his attorney filed an ancillary motion—that is, a subsidiary proceeding within a larger case—before the Fourth Collegiate Criminal Court of the Second Circuit. The argument was that the stay had been disregarded and that his handover to the United States should be deemed a violation of that judicial measure.

On December 30, 2025, the court ruled that the motion was procedurally improper on technical grounds: the stay bound only those authorities specifically named in the original *amparo* petition, whereas the individual who had physically carried out the handover—the Technical Secretary of the National Security Council—had never been named as a responsible party in that petition. Since he was not a party to the proceedings, he wasn’t bound to comply with the stay.

In other words, the stay provided protection against the authorities named in the *amparo* petition, but the handover was executed by a different authority that hadn’t been included. The judge was compelled to uphold this legal technicality.

“El 85”: A CNN Report Cited to Justify His Handover

Erick Valencia Salazar—known as “El 85” and an alleged operative of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel—faced a situation very similar to that of Ángel Treviño. He was protected by an active definitive injunction and was the subject of an ongoing extradition proceeding.

The Secretariat of Foreign Affairs (SRE) itself had issued instructions that he remain detained at the Altiplano prison until the legal process was concluded; nevertheless, he was handed over on the grounds of the National Security Law and the threat he posed to Mexico.

His legal defense team filed a writ of *amparo* immediately after Valencia was handed over, arguing that his removal from the country was unlawful because it violated the injunction protecting him. However, the First Collegiate Criminal Court of the Second Circuit dismissed the petition on May 29, 2025. The judge ruled that the act had already been irreparably consummated: Valencia Salazar was already in the United States, and there was no legal mechanism to bring him back.

To confirm that he had, in fact, departed the country, the court cited a news report from CNN as evidence.

“El Playa”: Extradition Granted, Yet He Was Sent Out via a Different Route

There is another case—that of Itiel Palacios García, known as “El Playa”—who is accused in Mexico of the murder of local legislator Juan Carlos Molina Palacios in Veracruz. In the United States, he faced charges of conspiracy to import cocaine and possession of machine guns, carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

His case presented a unique peculiarity: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had already formally granted his extradition through the standard legal process; however, instead of executing that extradition in accordance with the established timeline, the government removed him from the country via the National Security Council.

His defense team filed a writ of *amparo* (constitutional injunction), arguing that his handover was illegal because it was carried out outside the formal legal proceedings that were already underway. Nevertheless, on March 5, 2026, the First Collegiate Criminal Court of the Seventh Circuit dismissed the case, citing a familiar argument: the act had already been consummated.

“There would be no way whatsoever to restore matters to the state in which they previously stood,” the magistrates stated.

The suspended sentence

José Luis Sánchez Valencia—linked to the CJNG and methamphetamine trafficking—represents the clearest example of how judicial stays proved utterly futile. Despite having obtained a stay that expressly prohibited his surrender or transfer to the United States, he was removed from the Northern Penitentiary, transported to the Altiplano prison, and from there, handed over at the Toluca Airport.

Sánchez’s legal counsel documented, step by step, exactly what had transpired and filed a motion alleging a failure to comply with the judicial stay. Their argument was straightforward: the protective measure had been completely disregarded.

The Fourth Collegiate Criminal Court of the First Circuit declared the motion unfounded. Its reasoning mirrored that used in the Treviño case: the party that executed the handover—the Altiplano prison staff, acting under orders from the National Security Council—had not been named as a responsible authority in the original *amparo* petition. Consequently, the court ruled, the stay did not bind them.

The defense countered that this legal standard was dangerous: if an authority could circumvent a judicial stay simply by delegating its execution to a different entity not named in the *amparo* petition, such stays would be rendered entirely devoid of substance. The court, however, didn’t deem this argument sufficient to alter its ruling.

The One Who Asked Mexico to Bring Him Back

The case of José Alberto García Vilano stands as the sole instance in this entire series where the legal strategy took a completely different path. Rather than fighting his departure, García Vilano’s defense team decided to request that Mexico facilitate his return to the country.

In Mexico, García Vilano faced charges of kidnapping as well as extradition proceedings that were still underway when he was handed over to the United States on February 27, 2025. Awaiting him there were drug trafficking charges filed in the U.S. Federal Court for the Southern District of Texas.

In October 2025, his attorney wrote to Foreign Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente, formally requesting his repatriation. The argument put forward was that García Vilano wasn’t extradited, but rather expelled from his own country before legal proceedings had concluded—an act that violated his constitutional right not to be expelled from national territory.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded in November 2025 with a technical refusal. It explained that Mexico cannot request the return of a person currently located in another country: voluntary repatriation depends on the individual’s own desire to return and the absence of any legal impediments in the country where they are situated; forced repatriation, conversely, is a decision made by the country holding the individual, not by the country of origin. Simply put: if the United States doesn’t wish to return García Vilano, Mexico cannot compel it to do so.

The defense subsequently filed an *amparo* petition challenging this refusal. The case quickly devolved into a jurisdictional tangle, with three different courts bouncing the matter back and forth among themselves for months.

On April 9, 2026, the Fourth Collegiate Criminal Court of the First Circuit resolved this jurisdictional dispute, determining which court would be responsible for processing the case; the *amparo* petition itself, however, remains pending. It is the only file in this entire series of proceedings that hasn’t yet been closed—and the only one that could potentially lead a judge to rule on the substantive merits of the case.

He Won His Injunction—Yet They Removed Him Anyway

There is also the case of José Carlos Guzmán Bernal, who was fighting to prevent his extradition to Alaska to stand trial on drug-related charges. On April 15, 2025, a federal court ruled partially in his favor: it ordered the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs (SRE) to nullify the extradition agreement and issue a new resolution. It was an injunction he had won.

However, the Secretariat and the Attorney General’s Office appealed that ruling. The case remained pending resolution before a collegiate court; yet, four months later—on August 12, 2025, and before that court could issue a decision—Guzmán Bernal was transferred to the Altiplano prison and handed over to U.S. authorities pursuant to the National Security Law.

His defense team filed a new injunction, challenging and opposing the transfer. The court dismissed it, ruling that the act had already been consummated. The appeal regarding the injunction he had previously won continued its course through the courts, but to no practical effect: the man was already in the United States.

Of the 14 case files analyzed, the pattern was identical in every instance. Judges closed the injunction proceedings before even examining whether the legal mechanism employed by the government was lawful. The rationale was invariably the same: the individual was already in the United States, the act was irreparable, and Mexican courts lack jurisdiction over foreign authorities. Even if the injunction were granted, there would be no means to enforce it.

Source: Milenio