A Southern California man convicted of killing his mother as a teenager was captured in Mexico a week after he walked away from a halfway house, violating the conditions of his probation, authorities said.
Ike Nicholas Souzer, 20, was arrested Wednesday in the coastal city of Rosarito by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Mexican officials after a weeklong manhunt, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said. He is once again in custody in Orange County.
In a news release, the district attorney’s office described Souzer as an “extremely dangerous and violent criminal.”
Souzer had already served his sentence for stabbing his mother to death in 2017, when he was 13. He was subsequently convicted on a vandalism charge and served a short sentence, then released from custody March 20, prosecutors said.
The judge in that case also sentenced Souzer to two years of probation.
Ike Nicholas Souzer.
Orange County District Attorney’s Office
This was the second time Souzer disappeared from a halfway house. In 2022, he was let out of jail and moved to a halfway house in Santa Ana where he removed his electronic monitor and left. He was later captured by police. In his recent escape, Souzer again cut off his electronic monitoring device, CBS Los Angeles reported.
He also escaped a juvenile detention facility in 2019.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said Souzer deserved harsher sentences and blamed judges who have handled his cases.
“This is not someone who deserves a break; he has turned every opportunity to turn over a new leaf into a new opportunity to break the law and defy law enforcement. He did not simply walk away and forget to check in with his probation officer,” Spitzer said in the news release. “The second he was out of custody he set a plan in motion to flee to a foreign country in yet another attempt to escape the consequences of his actions.”
Souzer was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the death of his mother. His defense attorney argued that the killing was in self-defense and said the teen had experienced years of abuse, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Souzer has also been charged with three attacks on correctional officers, possessing a shank in jail, and most recently, drawing graffiti on a freeway underpass, prosecutors said.
TAXCO, Mexico — A mob in the Mexican tourist city of Taxco brutally beat a woman to death Thursday because she was suspected of kidnapping and killing a young girl, rampaging just hours before the city’s famous Holy Week procession.
The mob formed after an 8-year-old girl disappeared Wednesday. Her body was found on a road on the outskirts of the city early Thursday. Security camera footage appeared to show a woman and a man loading a bundle, which may have been the girl’s body, into a taxi.
The mob surrounded the woman’s house Thursday, threatening to drag her out. Police took the woman into the bed of a police pickup truck, but then stood by — apparently intimidated by the crowd — as members of the mob dragged her out of the truck and down onto the street where they stomped, kicked and pummeled her until she lay, partly stripped and motionless.
Police then picked her up and took her away, leaving the pavement stained with blood. The Guerrero state prosecutors’ office later confirmed the woman died of her injuries.
“This is the result of the bad government we have,” said a member of the mob, who gave her name as Andrea but refused to give her last name. “This isn’t the first time this kind of thing has happened,” she said, referring to the murder of the girl, “but this is the first time the people have done something.”
“We are fed up,” she said. “This time it was an 8-year-old girl.”
A relative of the kidnapped 8-year-old girl weeps Thursday as her body is handed over to family in Taxco.Fernando Llano / AP
The mayor of Taxco, Mario Figueroa, said he shared residents’ outrage over the killing. Figueroa said a total of three people beaten by the mob — the woman and two men — had been taken away by police. Video from the scene suggested they had also been beaten, though The Associated Press witnessed only the beating of the woman.
The state prosecutors’ office said the two men were hospitalized. There was no immediate information on their condition.
In a statement issued soon after the event, Figueroa complained he did not get any help from the state government for his small, outnumbered municipal police force.
“Unfortunately, up to now we have not received any help or answers,” Figueroa said.
The Good Friday eve religious procession, which dates back centuries in the old silver-mining town, went off as planned Thursday night.
People crowded Taxco’s colonial streets to watch hooded men walking while whipping themselves or carrying heavy bundles of thorns across their bare shoulders in penitence to emulate the suffering of Jesus Christ carrying the cross.
Penitents carry a bundle of thorny branches during a Holy Week procession Thursday in Taxco.Fernando Llano / AP
But the earlier flash of violence cast a pall over the already solemn procession, which draws thousands to the small town.
Many participants wore small white ribbons of mourning.
“I never thought that in a touristic place like Taxco we would experience a lynching,” said Felipa Lagunas, a local elementary school teacher. “I saw it as something distant, in places far from civilization … I never imagined that my community would experience this on such a special day.”
Mob attacks in rural Mexico are common. In 2018, two men were torched by an angry crowd in the central state of Puebla, and the next day a man and woman were dragged from their vehicle, beaten and set afire in the neighboring state of Hidalgo.
But Taxco and other cities in Guerrero state have been particularly prone to violence.
In late January, Taxco endured a days-long strike by private taxi and van drivers who suffered threats from one of several drug gangs fighting for control of the area. The situation was so bad that police had to give people rides in the back of their patrol vehicles.
Around the same time, the bullet-ridden bodies of two detectives were found on the outskirts of Taxco. Local media said their bodies showed signs of torture.
In February, Figueroa’s own bulletproof car was shot up by gunmen on motorcycles.
In Taxco and throughout Guerrero state, drug cartels and gangs routinely prey on the local population, demanding protection payments from store owners, taxi and bus drivers. They kill those who refuse to pay.
Residents said they have had enough, even though the violence may further affect tourism.
“We know the town lives off of Holy Week (tourism) and that this is going to mess it up. There will be a lot of people who won’t want to come anymore,” said Andrea, the woman who was in the mob. “We make our living off tourism, but we cannot continue to allow them to do these things to us.”
A mob in the Mexican tourist city of Taxco brutally beat a woman to death Thursday because she was suspected of kidnapping and killing a young girl, rampaging just hours before the city’s famous Holy Week procession.
The mob formed after an 8-year-old girl disappeared Wednesday. Her body was found on a road on the outskirts of the city early Thursday. Security camera footage appeared to show a woman and a man loading a bundle, which may have been the girl’s body, into a taxi.
The mob surrounded the woman’s house Thursday, threatening to drag her out. Police took the woman into the bed of a police pickup truck, but then stood by – apparently intimidated by the crowd – as members of the mob dragged her out of the truck and down onto the street where they stomped, kicked and pummeled her until she lay, partly stripped and motionless.
A woman chants the Spanish word for “justice” during a demonstration protesting the kidnapping and killing of an 8-year-old girl, in the main square of Taxco, Mexico, Thursday, March 28, 2024. Hours earlier a mob beat a woman to death because she was suspected of kidnapping and killing the young girl.
Fernando Llano / AP
Police then picked her up and took her away, leaving the pavement stained with blood. The Guerrero state prosecutors’ office later confirmed the woman died of her injuries.
“This is the result of the bad government we have,” said a member of the mob, who gave her name as Andrea but refused to give her last name. “This isn’t the first time this kind of thing has happened,” she said, referring to the murder of the girl, “but this is the first time the people have done something.”
“We are fed up,” she said. “This time it was an 8-year-old girl.”
The mayor of Taxco, Mario Figueroa, said he shared residents’ outrage over the killing. Figueroa said a total of three people beaten by the mob – the woman and two men – had been taken away by police. Video from the scene suggested they had also been beaten, though The Associated Press witnessed only the beating of the woman.
The state prosecutors’ office said the two men were hospitalized. There was no immediate information on their condition.
In a statement issued soon after the event, Figueroa complained he did not get any help from the state government for his small, outnumbered municipal police force.
“Unfortunately, up to now we have not received any help or answers,” Figueroa said.
The Good Friday eve religious procession, which dates back centuries in the old silver-mining town, went off as planned Thursday night.
People crowded Taxco’s colonial streets to watch hooded men walking while whipping themselves or carrying heavy bundles of thorns across their bare shoulders in penitence to emulate the suffering of Jesus Christ carrying the cross.
But the earlier flash of violence cast a pall over the already solemn procession, which draws thousands to the small town.
Many participants wore small white ribbons of mourning.
“I never thought that in a touristic place like Taxco we would experience a lynching,” said Felipa Lagunas, a local elementary school teacher. “I saw it as something distant, in places far from civilization … I never imagined that my community would experience this on such a special day.”
Mob attacks in rural Mexico are common. In 2018, two men were torched by an angry crowd in the central state of Puebla, and the next day a man and woman were dragged from their vehicle, beaten and set afire in the neighboring state of Hidalgo.
But Taxco and other cities in Guerrero state have been particularly prone to violence.
In late January, Taxco endured a days-long strike by private taxi and van drivers who suffered threats from one of several drug gangs fighting for control of the area. The situation was so bad that police had to give people rides in the back of their patrol vehicles.
Around the same time, the bullet-ridden bodies of two detectives were found on the outskirts of Taxco. Local media said their bodies showed signs of torture.
In February, Figueroa’s own bulletproof car was shot up by gunmen on motorcycles.
In Taxco and throughout Guerrero state, drug cartels and gangs routinely prey on the local population, demanding protection payments from store owners, taxi and bus drivers. They kill those who refuse to pay.
Cartel violence in Guerrero has continued unabated this year.
In February, investigators in Guerrero said they confirmed the contents of a grisly drug cartel video showing gunmen shooting, kicking and burning the corpses of their enemies. Prosecutors said they had reached the remote scene of the crime in the mountain township of Totolapan and found five charred bodies.
In January, an alleged cartel attack in Guerrero killed at least six people and injured 13 others.
The U.S. State Department urges Americans not to travel to Guerrero, citing widespread crime and violence. “Armed groups operate independently of the government in many areas of Guerrero,” the U.S. advisory says. “Members of these groups frequently maintain roadblocks and may use violence towards travelers.”
Residents said they have had enough, even though the violence may further affect tourism.
“We know the town lives off of Holy Week (tourism) and that this is going to mess it up. There will be a lot of people who won’t want to come anymore,” said Andrea, the woman who was in the mob. “We make our living off tourism, but we cannot continue to allow them to do these things to us.”
AZACUALPA, Honduras — The construction workers who went missing in the Baltimore bridge collapse came to the Maryland area from Mexico or Central America, including an enterprising Honduran father and husband who started a delivery business before the pandemic forced him to find other work, according to his family.
Police managed to close bridge traffic seconds before a cargo ship slammed into one of the Francis Scott Key Bridge’s supports early Tuesday, causing the span to fall into the frigid Patapsco River. There wasn’t time for a maintenance crew filling potholes on the span to get to safety.
At least eight people fell into the water and two were rescued. Two bodies were recovered Wednesday and four remained missing and were presumed dead.
Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval in 2018.Martin Suazo Sandoval via AP
The governments of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras confirmed that their citizens were among the missing.
Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, 38, was the youngest of eight siblings from Azacualpa, a rural mountainous area in northwestern Honduras along the border with Guatemala.
Eighteen years ago, he set out on his own for the U.S. looking for opportunities. He had worked as an industrial technician in Honduras, repairing equipment in the large assembly plants, but the pay was too low to get ahead, one of his brothers, Martín Suazo Sandoval, said Wednesday while standing in the dirt street in front of the family’s small hotel in Honduras.
“He always dreamed of having his own business,” he said.
Another brother, Carlos Suazo Sandoval, said Maynor hoped to retire one day back in Guatemala.
“He was the baby for all of us, the youngest. He was someone who was always happy, was always thinking about the future. He was a visionary,” he told The Associated Press by phone Wednesday from Dundalk, Maryland, near the site of the bridge collapse.
Maynor entered the United States illegally and settled in Maryland. At first, he did any work he could find, including construction and clearing brush. Eventually, he started a package delivery business in the Baltimore-Washington area, Martín Suazo Sandoval said.
Other siblings and relatives followed him north.
Carlos Suazo Sandoval speaks with a reporter on the phone, in Dundalk, Md., on March 27, 2024. Brian Witte / AP
“He was the fundamental pillar, the bastion so that other members of the family could also travel there and later get visas and everything,” Martín Suazo Sandoval said. “He was really the driving force so that most of the family could travel.”
Maynor has a wife and two children ages 17 and 5, he said.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced Maynor to find other work, and he joined Brawner Builders, the company that was performing maintenance on the bridge when it collapsed.
Martín Suazo Sandoval said Maynor never talked about being scared of the work, despite the heights he worked at on the bridges. “He always told us that you had to triple your effort to get ahead,” Martín Suazo Sandoval said. “He said it didn’t matter what time or where the job was, you had to be where the work was.”
Things had been going well for him until the collapse. He was moving through the steps to get legal residency and planned to return to Honduras this year to complete the process, his brother said.
Even though Maynor had not been able to return to Honduras, he had financially supported various nongovernmental social organizations in town, as well as the youth soccer league, his brother said. The area depends largely upon agriculture — coffee, cattle, sugarcane — he said.
Maynor’s employer broke the news of his disappearance to his family, leaving them devastated, especially his mother, who still lives in Azacualpa, Martín Suazo Sandoval said.
“These are difficult moments, and the only thing we can do is keep the faith,” he said, noting that his younger brother knew how to swim and could have ended up anywhere. If the worst outcome is confirmed, he said the family would work to return his body to Honduras.
Martín Suazo Sandoval speaks with reporters outside his home in Azacualpa, Honduras, on March 27, 2024.Claudio Escalón / AP
In Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said three Mexicans were on the bridge when it fell, including one who was injured but rescued and two who were still missing. He wouldn’t share their names for the families’ privacy.
The tragedy illustrated the contributions that migrants make to the U.S. economy, López Obrador said.
“This demonstrates that migrants go out and do risky jobs at midnight. And for this reason, they do not deserve to be treated as they are by certain insensitive, irresponsible politicians in the United States,” he said.
Later, Col. Roland L. Butler Jr., superintendent of Maryland State Police, announced that the bodies of two men, ages 35 and 26, had been located by divers inside a red pickup submerged in about 25 feet (7.6 meters) of water near the bridge’s middle span.
One was Guatemalan Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, and the other 35-year-old Alejandro Hernández Fuentes, originally from Mexico.
Guatemala’s Foreign Affairs Ministry had earlier confirmed that two of its citizens were among the missing. And El Salvador’s foreign minister, Alexandra Hill Tinoco, posted Wednesday on X that one Salvadoran citizen, Miguel Luna, was among the missing workers.
Federal and state investigators have said the crash appears to have been an accident.
What’s known about the 6 missing from Baltimore bridge collapse – CBS News
Watch CBS News
The search for six people unaccounted for after the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore resumed Wednesday. CBS News’ Nicole Sganga has the latest on the recovery efforts, and Ed O’Keefe reports on the Biden administration’s response.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Increase in migrants trying to cross U.S.-Mexico border in states farther West – CBS News
Watch CBS News
There’s been a dramatic shift in routes of migrants trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, with a big drop in Texas and an increase in states farther West like Arizona and California.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
A group of relatives searching for some of Mexico’s roughly 100,000 missing persons said it had discovered around two dozen bags containing human remains in a clandestine cemetery.
The bones and other charred remains were found on Sunday at a ranch in El Salto in the western state of Jalisco, according to the Guerreros Buscadores collective.
After arriving at the site accompanied by National Guard personnel, the group discovered a smoking pit oven and noticed a foul stench, according to one of its members, Indira Navarro.
“While exploring, we began to locate bones, skin and burnt human flesh,” she told AFP, adding: “We’re talking about a clandestine cemetery.”
Members of the National Guard guard the area where a group of searching mothers from the collective “Guerreros Buscadores” located two clandestine crematory ovens and 27 bags with human remains during the search for their relatives in El Salto, Jalisco State, Mexico on March 24, 2024.
ULISES RUIZ/AFP via Getty Images
There was no immediate comment from the state prosecutor’s office, which was expected to inspect the site.
Collectives searching for missing persons say that drug trafficking cartels and other organized crime gangs use brick and other ovens to incinerate their victims and leave no trace.
Most of Mexico’s missing persons have vanished since the country launched a major offensive against the cartels in 2006.
Jalisco, where the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel operates, is one of the regions with the most people to have disappeared and the scene of turf wars between rival drug gangs. Just last week, prosecutors there said they found five dead bodies piled in a bulletproof SUV.
Last June in Jalisco, authorities found 45 bags containing human remains in a gorge. Four months before that, 31 bodies were exhumed by authorities from two clandestine graves in Jalisco.
In addition, nearly 450,000 people have been murdered across the country since 2006.
The country’s forensic system is overwhelmed, and tens of thousands of unidentified bodies lie unclaimed in morgues or mass graves.
3/24/2024: The Right to be Wrong; AMLO; Law of the Sea – CBS News
Watch CBS News
First, a report on the spread of misinformation on social media. Then, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador: The 60 Minutes Interview. And, U.S. fails to ratify treaty for ocean mining.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador: The 60 Minutes Interview – CBS News
Watch CBS News
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador talks about his handling of the border, Mexican drug cartels, fentanyl, the Mexico-U.S. relationship and more during a conversation with Sharyn Alfonsi.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Immigration, the border and the economy have emerged as key issues in this year’s presidential election and may determine who wins the White House. But the person who could tip the scales for either candidate…is another president. Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, widely known by his initials “AMLO.” Charismatic, and often combative, “AMLO” won a landslide victory in 2018 on the promise to root-out corruption, reduce poverty and violent crime. Now, 70 years old and in the final stretch of his term, we met the president in Mexico City for a candid conversation about his handling of immigration, trade, the fentanyl crisis, and the cartels. And he told us why he thinks…when Donald Trump says he is going to shut down the border or build a wall, he’s bluffing.
Sharyn Alfonsi: President Trump is saying he wants to build a wall again.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): On the campaign.
Sharyn Alfonsi: But you don’t think he’d actually do it?
President López Obrador (in Spanish) No, no..
Sharyn Alfonsi: Because? Because he needs Mexico.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Because we understood each other very well. We signed an economic, a commercial agreement that has been favorable for both peoples, for both nations. He knows it. And President Biden, the same.
Sharyn Alfonsi: But what about the people that’ll say, “Oh. But the wall works”?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): It doesn’t work!
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador
60 Minutes
And President López Obrador says he told that to then-President Trump during a phone call. They were supposed to be discussing the pandemic.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): It was an agreement not to speak about the wall because we were not going to agree.
Sharyn Alfonsi: And then you talked about it.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): That was the only time. And I told him, “I am going to send you, Mr. President, some videos of tunnels from Tijuana up to San Diego, that passed right under U.S. Customs.” He stayed quiet, and then he started laughing and told me “I can’t win with you.”
We met President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at Mexico’s National Palace earlier this month. With six months left on his six-year term, López Obrador’s power in Mexico – and influence in the United States – has never been greater. The White House witnessed it – here – last December when a record 250,000 migrants overwhelmed the U.S. southern border with Mexico.
Sharyn Alfonsi: President Biden called you. He sent his Secretary of State. What did they say to you and what did they ask for from you?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): For us to try and contain the flow of migration.
A month later, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol reported the number of migrant crossing dropped by 50 percent.
Sharyn Alfonsi: So what did you do between December and January that changed that number so dramatically?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): We were more careful about our southern border. We spoke with the presidents of Central America, with the president of Venezuela and with the president of Cuba. We asked them for help in curbing the flow of migrants. However, that is a short-term solution, not a long-term one.
Mexico also increased patrols at the border, flying some migrants to the southern part of Mexico and deporting others. But by February, the number of migrants crossing into the U.S. began to rise again and the Border Patrol expects a sharp increase in that number this spring.
Sharyn ALfonsi and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador
60 Minutes
Sharyn Alfonsi: Everybody thinks you have the power in this moment to slow down migration. Do you plan to?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): We do and want to continue doing it, but we do want for the root causes to be attended to, for them to be seriously looked at.
With the ear of the White House – President López Obrador proposed his fix- that the United States commit $20 billion a year to poor countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, lift sanctions on Venezuela, end the Cuban embargo and legalize millions of law-abiding Mexicans living in the U.S.
Sharyn Alfonsi: If they don’t do the things that you said need to be done, then what?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): The flow of migrants… will continue.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Your critics have said what you’re doing, what you’re asking for to help secure the border is diplomatic blackmail. What do you say?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): I am speaking frankly, we have to say things as they are, and I always say what I feel. I always say what I think.
Sharyn Alfonsi: If they don’t do those things, will you continue to help to secure the border?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Yes, because our relationship is very important. It is fundamental.
For much of the last six years, President López Obrador has held a televised 7 a.m. press conference…five days a week. During our visit he was dissecting “fake news.” The briefinglasted more than two hours.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Is it a pulpit or is it a press conference?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): It is a circular dialogue, even though my opponents say that I am on a pulpit.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador
60 Minutes
Time is the only luxury AMLO seems comfortable spending. When he took office, he sold the presidential jet, and his predecessors’ fleet of bulletproof cars in favor of his Volkswagen. He uses his daily briefings to rail against “the elite” and enemies, real and perceived. At times it can feel like a political telenovela. At a briefing last month, the president stunned the audience when he read the cellphone number of a “New York Times” reporter – who was pursuing what he viewed as a critical story of him.
Sharyn Alfonsi: It looks like you were threatening that reporter.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): I didn’t do it with the intention of harming her. She, like yourself, are public figures, and I am as well.
Sharyn Alfonsi: But you know this is a dangerous place for reporters. And you know that threats often come in text and phones. When you put her phone number up behind you, you realized what you were doing.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): No, no, no, no. No.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Well, what did you think you were doing?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): It’s a form of responding to a libel. Imagine what it means for this reporter to write that the president of Mexico has connections with drug traffickers… And without having any proof. That is a vile slander.
Sharyn Alfonsi: So then why not just say it’s not true?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Because libel, when it doesn’t stain, it smears.
López Obrador’s bare knuckle brawls with the press are in sharp contrast to the softer approach he’s taken with the drug cartels. He dissolved the federal police and created a National Guard to take over public security and he invested millions to create jobs for young people to escape the grip of the cartels. According to the Mexican government, homicides have dropped almost 20% since he took office. The president calls his approach, “hugs, not bullets.”
Sharyn Alfonsi: How is that working out for Mexico?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Very well.
Sharyn Alfonsi: There are still 30,000 homicides in Mexico, and very few of those are prosecuted. So, there’s an idea that there’s still lawlessness in Mexico. Is that fair?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Of course we prosecute them. There is no impunity in Mexico. They all get prosecuted.
Sharyn Alfonsi: It’s a small percent.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): More than before.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador during a press conference
60 Minutes
According to México Evalúa, a Mexican think tank, about 5% of the country’s homicides are prosecuted. And a study last year reported cartels have expanded their reach, employing an estimated 175,000 people to extort businesses and traffic migrants and drugs into the U.S.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Can you reach the cartel and say, “Knock it off?”
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): No, no, no, no, no. What you have to do with the criminals is apply the law. But I’m not going to establish contact, communication with a criminal, the President of Mexico.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Are you saying you don’t have to reach out to them or communicate with them?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): No, no, no, no, no, because you cannot negotiate with criminals.
Sharyn Alfonsi: The head of the DEA says cartels are mass producing fentanyl, and the U.S. State Department has said that most of it is coming out of Mexico. Are they wrong?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Yes. Or rather, they don’t have all the information, because fentanyl is also produced in the United States.
Sharyn Alfonsi: The State Department says most of it’s coming from Mexico.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Fentanyl is produced in the United States, in Canada, and in Mexico. And the chemical precursors come from Asia. You know why we don’t have the drug consumption that you have in the United States? Because we have customs, traditions, and we don’t have the problem of the disintegration of the family.
Sharyn Alfonsi: But there is drug consumption in Mexico.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): But very little.
Sharyn Alfonsi: So, why the violence, then, in Mexico?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Because drug trafficking exists, but not the consumption.
López Obrador says threats by U.S. lawmakers to shut down the border to curb drug trafficking, is little more than saber rattling. That’s because last year, Mexico became America’s top trading partner.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): They could say, “we are going to close the border,” but we mutually need each other.
Sharyn Alfonsi: What would happen to the U.S. if they closed the border?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): You would not be able to buy inexpensive cars if the border is closed. That is, you would have to pay $10,000, $15,000 dollars more for a car. There are factories in Mexico and there are factories in the United States that are fundamental for all the consumers in the United States and all the consumers in Mexico.
Last year, the Mexican economy grew 3% and unemployment hit a record low. But critics says Mexico’s economic growth isn’t because of the president, rather, in spite of him. López Obrador directed billions to signature mega projects like an oil refinery in his home state and a railroad through the Yucatan Jungle…costing an estimated $28 billion.
Sharyn Alfonsi: What about infrastructure? Aren’t there more dire concerns like, you know, clean water, roads, reliable energy, when you’re trying to attract business to Mexico?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): We are doing both, fixing the roads and building this train. It will link all the ancient Mayan cities and is going to allow Mexicans and tourists to enjoy a paradise region that is the southeast of Mexico.
López Obrador has spent unapologetically on social programs – doubling the minimum wage, increasing pensions, and scholarships. His approval rating has remained high – upwards of 60% for most of his presidency.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Your critics say that you’re popular because you give people money. What do you say?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): I would say they are partly right. Our formula is simple: It is not to allow corruption; not to make for an ostentatious government, for luxuries; and everything we save we allocate to the people.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Do you think that you’ve been able to get rid of the corruption in Mexico?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Yes.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Completely?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Yes, basically, because corruption in Mexico started from the top down.
But Transparency International reports no improvement in the corruption problems that have plagued Mexico for decades. Huge crowds gathered last month, accusing the president of trying to eliminate the country’s democratic checks and balances. In June, Mexico will have one of largest elections in its history…in addition to the presidency, 20,000 local positions are up for grabs. The cartels have funded and preyed on local candidates. Last month, two mayoral hopefuls were killed within hours of each other, raising fears of a bloody election.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): I can travel throughout the entire country without problem. There is no region that I cannot go and visit.
Sharyn Alfonsi: The number of government officials and candidates murdered rose from 94 in 2018 to 355 last year. You don’t view that as a threat to you, obviously, but do you view it as a threat to democracy?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation) No. There are some specific instances. There is no state repression.
Sharyn Alfonsi: But if a candidate’s afraid to run because they may be assassinated, isn’t that a threat to democracy?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Generally, they all participate, there are many candidates, from all the parties.
His hand-picked successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, has a commanding lead in the polls, and could become Mexico’s first female president. López Obrador told us when he leaves office, he will retire from politics and write books. But what he does next at the border –or doesn’t do – could shape the next chapter of the United States.
Produced by Michael Karzis. Associate producer, Katie Kerbstat Jacobson. Broadcast associate, Erin DuCharme. Edited by Daniel J. Glucksman
Sharyn Alfonsi
Sharyl Alfonsi is an award-winning correspondent for CBS News’ 60 Minutes.
