President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday that her government would seek the extradition to Mexico of a joint-owner of a daycare center in Hermosillo, Sonora, where a fire in 2009 claimed the lives of 49 young children and babies.
A collective made up of parents of the victims said on Saturday that it had become aware that Sandra Luz Téllez Nieves, an owner and partner of the ABC Daycare Center in Hermosillo, was being held at the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona.
🚨#ÚLTIMAHORA Confirma la Presidenta @Claudiashein solicitud de extradición de Sandra Luz Téllez, copropietaria de la #GuarderíaABC, detenida en #Arizona según informó la organización @12_manosunidas. Será la @SRE_mx encargada de brindar información 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/3BeyE5YK8I
— Michelle Rivera (@michelleriveraa) August 4, 2025
A court in Mexico issued a “rearrest warrant” for Téllez in 2022, and she was arrested in the United States after the issuance of an Interpol Red Notice, according to Grupo Manos Unidos por Nuestros Niños, as the aforesaid collective is called. The newspaper Milenio consulted U.S. Department of Homeland Security records that showed that Téllez was in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Arizona on Monday morning.
In an open letter to Sheinbaum and Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero, the group Manos Unidas por Nuestros Niños (Holding Hands for Our Children) said that the rearrest warrant was issued so that Téllez would be forced to comply with a jail sentence she received in Mexico, but never served.
“Madam President, we appeal to your empathy and solidarity so that this crime of the state doesn’t go unpunished. Mr. Attorney General of the Republic, we ask that the Mexican state do what is necessary so that Sandra Luz Téllez Nieves is deported and extradited to our country and turned over to Mexican authorities so that they send her to the corresponding prison and she serves the definitive and firm sentence issued against her for the death of and injuries to our sons and daughters,” the collective said.
At her morning press conference on Monday, Sheinbaum was asked about the extradition request.
“Yes, we obviously have to request the extradition,” the president said.
“What I’m not sure about is whether it has already been requested or is about to be requested,” Sheinbaum said.
She said that her government would always remain on the side of the victims of the ABC Daycare Center tragedy.
In 2016, Téllez was sentenced to almost 29 years in prison in connection with the deadly 2009 fire that started in a state government warehouse and spread to the daycare center. Her sentence was subsequently reduced on appeal to five years and seven months, but she didn’t serve that sentence, fleeing the country to avoid arrest in Mexico.
A rearrest warrant has been valid since February 2022, but Téllez remained a fugitive until her arrest in Arizona.
Milenio reported that among the other partners of the ABC Daycare Center in Hermosillo were “Alfonso Cristóbal Escalante Hoeffer (presumed husband of Téllez and ex-deputy minister of ranching in Sonora), Antonio Salido Suárez (ex-director of infrastructure and urban development at a state level), Marcia Matilde Altagracia Gómez del Campo Tonela (Salido’s wife) and Gildardo Urquídez Serrano.”
The fire
The fire started in a Ministry of Finance warehouse in Hermosillo due to the overheating of an air conditioning unit, investigators found. The blaze quickly spread to the ABC Daycare Center, which was privately owned but had a contract with the Mexican Social Security Institute, a federal agency.
“The day care center was a firetrap, critics say,” The New York Times reported about two weeks after the fire on June 5, 2009.
Of the 49 children and babies killed, all were aged under five. Twenty-five were girls and 24 were boys. More than 100 other children suffered burns or other injuries.
On the 12th anniversary of the tragedy, the federal government noted in a statement that in addition to the deaths, 104 children were “injured or exposed to the inhalation of toxic gases.”
“Subsequent investigations determined that the daycare center did not comply with the established safety requirements, such as the presence of smoke detectors, the marking of evacuation routes and the minimum number of fire extinguishers and emergency exits. They also indicated that if the daycare center had met the regulations and safety requirements, the damages caused by the fire would have been much less severe or would not have occurred at all,” the government said.
A number of people were convicted of wrongdoing in connection with the deaths of the 49 children, but none are currently in prison, according to the news agency EFE.
Some of those convicted were subsequently exonerated, while the prison sentences of others were significantly reduced.
‘A thick cloak of impunity’
In its letter to Sheinbaum and Gertz, Manos Unidas por Nuestros Niños said that since the tragedy more than 16 years ago, the parents of the victims haven’t stopped demanding justice.
“From the start, the case was covered by a thick cloak of impunity, beginning with the authorities involved from the three levels of government and the owner-partners of the daycare center,” the collective said.
The collective said it was aware that a law firm in Arizona was seeking political asylum for Téllez, “falsely alleging” that she is “a politically persecuted person, when in fact she is guilty of the homicide of 49 boys and girls.”
The newspaper La Jornada reported that the ABC Daycare center case has long been “shrouded in allegations of cover-ups and impunity.”
“The owners of the daycare center maintained close ties with officials from the three levels of government during the [federal] administration of [former president] Felipe Calderón Hinojosa,” La Jornada said.
“For years, the families [of the victims] have denounced legal obstacles, political protection and a judicial system that is indifferent to their demands for justice,” the newspaper said.
With reports from Aristegui Noticias, La Jornada and López-Dóriga Digital
