The arrival of deportees in Mexico since U.S. President Donald Trump took office last week and the midair collision between a plane and a helicopter in Washington D.C. on Wednesday night were among the issues President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke about at her Thursday morning press conference.
She also commented briefly on the case of a well-known social media content creator who was convicted of attempted femicide and sentenced to a lengthy prison sentence on Wednesday.
More than 6,000 deportees have arrived in Mexico; 2 said their human rights were violated
Sheinbaum said that 5,282 people were deported to Mexico from the United States between Jan. 20 and 26 — the first seven days of the second Trump administration.
The number is higher than the 4,094 deportees she cited for the same period when speaking to reporters on Monday.
Sheinbaum said that an additional 527 people were deported to Mexico on Monday, Jan. 27, and that 435 deportees arrived on Tuesday.
All told, 6,244 people were deported to Mexico from the United States between Jan. 20 and Jan. 28, according to the figures cited by the president. About three-quarters of that number are Mexican.
Sheinbaum said that deportees are interviewed by Mexican authorities when they arrive “to find out whether their human rights were violated” after they were detained in the U.S.
“We have two cases: one of a Guatemalan woman and another of a compatriot,” she said.
Sheinbaum declined to specify the nature of their complaints but told reporters that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would report the cases to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Before he took office, Trump pledged to carry out “the largest deportation operation in American history.”
Last week, the Mexican government unveiled a support plan for deportees called “México te abraza” (Mexico embraces you).
‘Zero impunity for femicide’
A reporter asked Sheinbaum about the case of Rodolfo “Fofo” Márquez, a social media influencer who was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison for attempted femicide after he attacked a 52-year-old woman in a parking lot in Naucalpan, México state, in early 2024.
The attack occurred after the woman accidentally hit the side mirror of Márquez’s vehicle with the side mirror of her own car. Video footage showed the 27-year-old influencer punching and kicking his victim.
Sheinbaum made her view on violence against women very clear.
“Zero impunity for femicide, zero impunity,” she said.
“… Any death due to violence is terrible, but femicide is classified as ‘a violent death due to the sole fact of being a woman.’ So zero impunity for femicide,” Sheinbaum said.
Sheinbaum comments on Washington D.C. plane crash
Sheinbaum described Wednesday’s fatal crash between an American Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 plane and a United States Army Black Hawk helicopter as “very terrible.”
“Our solidarity with the families who lost a loved one and the people who died,” she said.
A total of 67 people — 60 passengers and four crew members on the American Airlines flight and three soldiers on board the helicopter — were killed, according to authorities in the United States.
The collision was the deadliest air crash in the United States since 2021, the Associated Press reported.
Mexico’s worst-ever aviation disaster was the crash of a Mexicana de Aviación flight in Michoacán in March 1986. All 167 passengers and crew onboard the Boeing 727-200 plane were killed.
In July 2018, Aeroméxico Connect flight 2431 crashed shortly after taking off from the Durango International Airport, but all 103 people onboard the Embraer plane survived.
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies (peter.davies@mexiconewsdaily.com)
