(Ken Silva, Headline USA) U.S. authorities have reportedly allowed the family of notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán to immigrate to America as part of a cooperation deal between his son and the Justice Department.
Mexico’s security chief confirmed Tuesday that 17 family members of cartel leaders crossed into the U.S. last week as part of that deal. Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch confirmed a report by independent journalist Luis Chaparro that family members of cartel boss Ovidio Guzman Lopez, who was extradited to the U.S. in 2023, had entered the country.
Guzmán Lopez is one of the brothers left running a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel after “El Chapo” was imprisoned in the U.S. Recent video footage shows the family members walking across the border from Tijuana with their suitcases to waiting U.S. agents.
🚨FAMILIA DE JOAQUÍN ‘EL CHAPO’ GUZMÁN SE ENTREGA EN #EU. 🧵
17 familiares de ‘El #Chapo’ Guzmán, incluida Griselda López, madre de Ovidio, se entregaron al #FBI (@FBI) en San Ysidro, Tijuana.
🔴Llegaron con visas permanentes como parte de negociaciones por Ovidio Guzmán.… pic.twitter.com/lDb8YGw8hm
— Josue Aguilar (@josuealeexis) May 12, 2025
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 confirmed the family members’ crossing in a radio interview and said it was clear to Mexican authorities that they were doing so after negotiations between Guzmán López and the U.S. government.
He believed that was the case because the former cartel boss, whose lawyer said in January he had entered negotiations with U.S. authorities, had been pointing fingers at members of other criminal organizations likely as part of a cooperation agreement.
“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,” Garcia Harfuch said.
He said that none of the family members were being pursued by Mexican authorities and that the government of U.S. President Donald Trump “has to share information” with Mexican prosecutors, something it has not yet done.
The confirmation by García Harfuch comes the same day that the U.S. Attorney General’s Office announced it was charging a number of top cartel leaders with “narcoterrorism” for the first time since the Trump administration declared a number of cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
While the immigration of the Guzmáns represents a new development in the relationship between them and the U.S. government, that family has likely been providing information to the U.S. government for years. Last year, American and Mexican authorities captured a fugitive, David DeWayne Young, who was wanted in the U.S. as part of a massive drug conspiracy case—and it was revealed soon thereafter that his capture was likely due to intelligence from the Sinaloas.
“As for El Chapo’s sons, they knew that an American fugitive was hiding in one of their strongholds. They decided they would score points with the FBI and hand him over as a goodwill offering,” Mexican journalist Óscar Balmen said last April, according to a report in the UK Daily Star.
“Giving his [Young’s] head on a platter would be convenient for them, because after the surprise arrest and express extradition of Ovidio [Guzmán] they started an operation to remove the label of ‘Uncle Sam’s priority targets for trafficking fentanyl’.”
The notion that the Sinaloa cartel helping the DOJ might seem preposterous, given that El Chapo is serving a life prison sentence in the U.S., and one of his sons might soon be doing the same.
However, the Sinaloa cartel has a long history of cooperating with federal authorities as part of a self-preservation strategy.
Newsweek detailed Sinaloa’s strategy of working with the U.S. in 2013, when the news organization interviewed an informant from the cartel.
The informant reportedly said an Immigration and Customs Enforcement told him that they were here to help [the Sinaloa cartel]—”and to fuck the Vicente Carrillo cartel. Sorry for the language. That’s exactly what they said,” the informant told Newsweek.
The same year as Newsweek’s investigation, an anonymous Mexican government official reportedly accused the US government of helping the Sinaloa cartel in an internal email leaked in 2012. The Mexican official reportedly alleged that US authorities told the Juarez Cartel in 2010 that it should recognize the superiority of the Sinaloa Cartel and called on both groups to cut down on violence in the area.
And in 2014, another outlet, Business Insider, revealed in 2014 that the DEA was exchanging intelligence with the Sinaloa cartel.
More recently, an ATF whistleblower has come forward with information suggesting that the U.S. is still funneling guns to Mexican cartels in an operation similar to the Obama-era Fast and Furious scandal.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
