Sheinbaum Asked Rubio to Extradite Two People in Aytozinapa Case

ByMexico Solidarity

This article originally appeared in the September 9, 2025 edition of Sin Embargo.

Mexico City. President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo revealed this morning that she requested the United States ( US ), during her meeting with the Secretary of State of that country, Marco Rubio, during his visit to the National Palace, the extradition of two criminal targets related to the case of the disappearance of 43 Ayotzinapa normal school students in 2014.

“It’s about the Ayotzinapa case. We had told the families, parents, and other people about the extradition request. I personally told the Secretary of State. It was just these two people. Because of the sensitivity of what this case means for our country,” the President stated at her press conference on Tuesday.

However, the President declined to name the individuals whose extradition was requested. She also did not confirm whether Secretary Rubio was open to the request.

The families of the 43 missing Ayotzinapa students have asked the Sheinbaum administration to extradite José Ulises Bernabé García, who lives in the US and was a judge in Barandilla de Iguala at the time of the students’ disappearance.

However, his case presents difficulties, as Bernabé García requested political asylum in the US in April 2015 and has been accepted there since then, which could complicate his extradition. Sheinbaum herself has said that he is a person “who has a lot to say” about the case.

Just last week, the parents of the 43 missing students from the Ayotzinapa rural teacher training college expressed disappointment after meeting with President Sheinbaum at the National Palace, where she presented them with a line of investigation into the analysis of phone calls made on the day the students disappeared. “We have not made any substantial progress,” the families retorted, almost eleven years after the tragedy.

“The parents have expressed that the President has been given a vote of confidence because she has shown willingness… but that willingness has to be translated into real actions and the investigations can move forward. There’s no progress; we were hoping for at least some significant progress with the cell line… the government failed to deliver much today,” said Isidoro Vicario, the families’ lawyer who replaced Vidulfo Rosales.

Mario César González, father of César Manuel González, accused the government of dropping other lines of investigation and arrest warrants, which is why they see a setback in the process. “Unfortunately, with new technology, they’ve dropped the lines we’ve had for 10 years, like those of the Army,” he explained, referring to 800 pages in the possession of the Ministry of National Defense (SEDENA).

For his part, Emiliano Navarrete, father of student teacher José Ángel, claimed that “the State continues to protect the former officials involved in the disappearance of our children.”