Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) sharply criticized President Trump on Thursday following reports that 17 family members of Sinaloa Cartel leaders were allowed into the U.S. last week as part of a deal with the Trump administration.
In floor remarks on Thursday, Schumer accused the president of being “soft on crime” and of “rolling out a welcome mat to El Chapo and his family and inviting them into our country.”
“If you’re related to El Chapo, Donald Trump says, ‘Come right in. Welcome to America.’ He’ll roll out the red carpet,” Schumer said on Thursday.
“What message does this send to other drug lords, criminals, and terrorists? Where are our Republican colleagues on this? Where is the outrage from the other side of the aisle, who say they want to prevent criminals from crossing our borders?” Schumer added.
Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch confirmed in a radio interview Tuesday that family members of Ovidio Guzmán Lopez, who was extradited to the United States in 2023, had entered the U.S.
Guzmán Lopez is one of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s brothers, and he was left running a faction of the cartel after the notorious cartel leader was imprisoned in the U.S.
Rumors had circulated last week that the younger Guzmán would plead guilty to avoid trial for several drug trafficking charges in the U.S. after being extradited in 2023.
García Harfuch said it was clear to Mexican authorities that they were doing so after negotiations between Guzmán López and the U.S. government.
“It is evident that his family is going to the U.S. because of a negotiation or an offer that the Department of Justice is giving him,” García Harfuch said.
The Associated Press contributed reporting.
