Mexico Tribune

Category: Politics

  • Mexico’s Senate Drafts Landmark AI Law With Prison Time for Misuse

    Mexico’s Senate Drafts Landmark AI Law With Prison Time for Misuse

    Mexico is on the verge of enacting its first comprehensive law governing artificial intelligence — a sweeping federal framework that would classify AI violations in three tiers of severity, create new national regulatory institutions, and impose penalties ranging from fines to prison sentences. The legislation, drafted by the Senate’s specialized AI committee, represents the most ambitious attempt yet to bring legal order to a technology that has already become a vehicle for fraud, electoral manipulation, and gender-based violence.

    The bill is not incremental. It establishes an entirely new category of offense — gravísimas, or “extremely serious” infractions — a term that appears in Mexican law for the first time. Acts that qualify include using AI to manipulate elections or engage in cognitive manipulation for illicit purposes, operating lethal autonomous weapons systems without human oversight, deploying mass surveillance without legal authorization, and introducing malware or backdoors into AI systems, according to Infobae. Infractions at the next level down — classified as “grave” — include running AI systems without proper certification or destroying algorithmic records.

    At the same time, the bill bans creating or distributing sexually explicit deepfakes without consent. When minors are involved, no consent is possible under any circumstances. The proposal also bars AI-automated hate campaigns, defamation, smear campaigns, and gender-based digital attacks — protections that take on particular weight given that research from the Eon Institute and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation found more than 10.6 million women in Mexico suffered some form of cyberharassment between 2020 and 2025, according to Expansión.

    Years in the Making

    Senator Rolando Zapata, who chairs the Senate’s AI committee, calls the bill the product of 16 months of structured consultation involving 72 specialists drawn from academia, the private sector, human rights organizations, and government agencies. Every political party represented in Congress took part — Morena, PAN, PVEM, PRI, PT, and Movimiento Ciudadano all contributed to the text.

    The bill proposes a national AI strategy, an AI development fund, and a federal certification system. It also sets out basic transparency requirements: because it is increasingly difficult to determine online whether content has been generated or altered using AI, the legislation would establish rules requiring that such manipulation be disclosed.

    Zapata has defended the bill against accusations that it would chill free expression. “This project in no way limits or restricts freedom of expression or political debate,” he stated on his official social media account. “It does not censor opinions or criticism, nor does it establish penalties for expressing oneself.”

    Significant Pushback

    Critics are not convinced the language is tight enough to prevent abuse. Víctor Ruiz, CEO of the cybersecurity firm SILIKN, told Expansión that vague terms like “cognitive manipulation” and “information risks” could give authorities dangerously broad latitude. “Without precise definitions, these terms can be open to broad interpretations by the authorities,” he said.

    Concerns extend beyond free speech. Mexico’s Association of the Information Technology Industry, known as AMITI, has warned that rushing AI legislation could complicate the 2026 review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the trilateral trade pact that governs North American commerce. “We believe that any bill containing AI content might not be appropriate at this time due to the upcoming review of the USMCA,” AMITI Director General Sofía Pérez told Mexico Business News. The association, along with counterparts in the U.S. and Canada, has published a joint statement arguing that AI should be treated as an economic enabler rather than the subject of restrictive legislation — particularly before trade negotiations begin in earnest.

    Where Mexico Fits Globally

    The bill draws on the European Union’s AI Act, adopting a risk-based classification model that scales oversight requirements according to the potential harm a given system could cause. That framework has become a reference point for legislatures across Latin America: Brazil has advanced a similar bill through its Senate, and Chile has published AI governance guidelines, making the region a growing test case for how developing economies regulate frontier technology.

    Mexico has lagged on this front despite rapid AI adoption. According to the QS World Future Skills Index 2025, AI use among Mexican companies grew by roughly 1,000% in recent years, yet around 60 AI-related bills have been introduced in Congress since 2020 without a comprehensive law emerging. The Senate bill represents the most coordinated push yet.

    AI has already reached unexpected corners of Mexican life — including conservation work in Yucatán, where researchers are using the technology to track jaguars in the Dzilam de Bravo nature reserve. How the technology is governed nationally will shape its use for years across every sector.

    The bill has passed its initial discussion phase and now heads to the full Senate for debate.

    At a Glance: Mexico’s Proposed AI Law

    • Infractions classified in 3 tiers: leves (minor), graves (serious), gravísimas (extremely serious)
    • “Gravísimas” offenses include electoral manipulation, lethal autonomous systems, mass surveillance, and AI-enabled fraud
    • Bans sexually explicit deepfakes without consent; no exceptions involving minors
    • Prohibits AI-automated harassment, hate campaigns, and gender-based digital attacks
    • Requires disclosure when AI has been used to generate or alter content
    • Proposes a national AI strategy, development fund, and federal certification system
    • Drafted over 16 months with input from 72 specialists; all major political parties participated
    • Modeled in part on the EU’s risk-based AI Act
    • Critics warn vague language could be used to restrict political speech
    • AMITI warns rushed legislation could complicate 2026 USMCA trade review
    • Passed initial discussion phase; pending full Senate debate

    Sources: Infobae, Expansión, Mexico Business News

  • Sheinbaum’s Approval Holds Above 68% Despite 6-Month Slide

    Sheinbaum’s Approval Holds Above 68% Despite 6-Month Slide

    Claudia Sheinbaum
    Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum speaks to the media at the National Palace. Photo: Courtesy

    Mexico’s most closely watched presidential poll shows President Claudia Sheinbaum’s approval rating has dipped for the sixth straight month — but remains well above 68%, with informal sector workers and housewives still firmly in her corner.

    The monthly Mitofsky survey, conducted for the newspaper El Economista by polling nearly 60,000 Mexicans with smartphones and internet access, put Sheinbaum’s March approval at 68.4%. That’s down from 69.1% in February and roughly 3 points below her peak of 71.6% recorded last September, which was the highest approval rating for a Mexican president at the one-year mark in decades, according to earlier Mitofsky data.

    March 31 marked the one-quarter point of Sheinbaum’s six-year term — a milestone Mitofsky noted in its analysis released this week.

    A Bumpy Month

    The month wasn’t easy. Sheinbaum faced the initial rejection of an electoral reform bill she had submitted to lawmakers, persistent inflation, a slowing economy, and a Gulf of Mexico oil spill that the government initially denied was Pemex’s fault. State oil company Pemex did not formally acknowledge responsibility for the spill until April 16.

    A separate poll by Brazilian firm AtlasIntel, conducted in late March, found considerably lower support — 53.9% — though Mitofsky’s larger sample size and longer track record make it the more frequently cited benchmark.

    Who Still Backs Her

    Under-the-table workers — a massive segment of Mexico’s workforce — gave Sheinbaum her strongest numbers, at 76.4% approval. Homemakers and pensioners followed at 75.9% and 72.5%, respectively. The business sector showed the lowest support at 56.1%, though that figure actually rose 4.6 points from February’s 51.5%.

    On party lines, the numbers hold few surprises. Members of Sheinbaum’s own Morena party gave her a 96% approval rating. Supporters of the center-right National Action Party (PAN) came in at 71%, down from 74% the month before. Those aligned with the formerly dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) registered 53% support, down from 57%, while members of the center-left Citizens Movement (MC) gave her just 43%.

    Among those who voted for Sheinbaum in the 2024 election, 94% still approve. Notably, 34% of people who did not vote for her now say they support her performance.

    What Worries Mexicans

    Security remains the dominant concern: 48.2% of those surveyed named it their top issue. Economic matters came second at 24.1%, followed by health care at 12.3%.

    At a Glance

    • Overall approval (March): 68.4%
    • Peak approval (September 2025): 71.6%
    • Survey conducted by: Mitofsky for El Economista
    • Sample size: Nearly 60,000 adults with smartphone/internet access
    • Highest approval group: Informal sector workers (76.4%)
    • Lowest approval group: Business sector (56.1%)
    • Top concern among respondents: Security (48.2%)

    For broader context on Sheinbaum’s trajectory since taking office, see AS/COA’s approval tracker.

    Source: El Economista / Mitofsky

  • Backlash Follows When Juárez Mayor Arrests Artists Behind an Unflattering Mural

    Juarez mural
    A satirical mural in Ciudad Juárez depicts the city’s mayor with the face of the artist who got the artists arrested. The mural was painted over by authorities. Photo: Social media

    A satirical mural in Ciudad Juárez depicting the city’s mayor with the face of a pig probably would have been seen by a few thousand commuters and forgotten. Then the mayor’s police force arrested the artists, and things got a lot more interesting.

    Officers detained Miguel Martínez — known as Mick Martínez — and his collaborator Chuchito Psy on April 11 in the Las Torres neighborhood. The two had painted Mayor Cruz Pérez Cuéllar, a Morena party stalwart, on the wall of a private home with the nose, mouth, and ears of a pig. It was cheeky. It was local. It was, until the police showed up, not particularly newsworthy.

    Then came the arrest, the outrage, and the national spotlight — none of which the mayor appears to have anticipated.

    The Official Story

    Pérez Cuéllar, facing reporters at a news conference, denied ordering the arrest. He said he found out about it later that day and immediately called the city’s public safety secretary to have everyone released. The official explanation for the detention? The artists were drinking in public.

    Few people bought it.

    “Freedom of expression has limits,” the mayor said. The MRK Crew, a local graffiti collective, said plainly that Martínez was arrested for the mural’s political content, full stop. Witnesses said the artists had permission from the homeowner. The drinking story quietly fell apart under scrutiny.

    The Backlash

    Before city workers could slap a coat of paint over the mural — which they did, without explanation — photos and video had already escaped into the wild. The arrest itself was the accelerant. What might have faded quietly off a wall in south Juárez was suddenly ricocheting across Mexican social media, landing in news feeds from Tijuana to Cancún.

    The mayor’s “freedom of expression has limits” line became an instant meme. Users gleefully paired it with the image of the pig-faced portrait, sharing it in exactly the quantities and places Pérez Cuéllar had hoped to avoid. The Streisand Effect — the phenomenon where trying to suppress something makes it far more visible — claimed another victim.

    Opposition politicians sharpened their knives. PAN leaders in Chihuahua called the arrest illegal and the mural’s erasure an open act of censorship. State PAN leader Daniela Álvarez pointed out that the artists had the property owner’s blessing, which made the whole intervention even harder to spin. Art collectives added their voices. So did just about everyone on the internet with an opinion about free speech, which, it turns out, is a lot of people.

    The episode landed with particular awkwardness for Morena, a party that has made no small amount of noise about democratic values and open government at the federal level. A pig caricature on a wall in Juárez became, somehow, a national conversation about all of it.

    This Is Kind of Mexico’s Thing

    Political satire painted on walls is not exactly a foreign concept in Mexico. The country invented modern political muralism. Diego Rivera spent decades making powerful people uncomfortable with a paintbrush, and his legacy echoes in the street art found on city walls across the country today. Mick Martínez and Chuchito Psy were working in a tradition that predates the mayor’s party by about a century.

    Article 6 of Mexico’s constitution protects freedom of expression. The exceptions are narrow — content that incites crime or disturbs public order. A pig face on a politician doesn’t come close. Juárez is a reminder that constitutional guarantees don’t always survive contact with a thin-skinned local official.

    As of this writing, no charges have been filed. The wall is blank. The mural lives on in every screenshot.

    Source: Latinus

    At a Glance

    • Artists detained: Miguel “Mick Martínez” Martínez and Chuchito Psy
    • Date of arrest: April 11, 2026
    • Location: Las Torres neighborhood, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua
    • Mayor involved: Cruz Pérez Cuéllar, Morena party
    • Official reason for arrest: Public consumption of alcohol
    • Artists’ claim: Detained for political content of the mural
    • Outcome: Artists released same day; mural painted over
    • No charges filed as of publication
  • Mexico’s Human Rights Watchdog Turns on the UN Over Disappearances

    Mexico’s Human Rights Watchdog Turns on the UN Over Disappearances

    Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission has taken a sharp turn, going from championing UN oversight of the country’s disappearances crisis to denouncing it as foreign interference — a reversal that critics say leaves victims without one of their most important defenders.

    The commission, known as the CNDH, spent several years actively calling on the federal government to accept supervision by the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED). In 2020, it warned that the widespread practice of enforced disappearance “constitutes a crime against humanity.” A year later, CNDH president Rosario Piedra Ibarra told the UN body directly that Mexico faced a “crisis of disappearances,” acknowledged “institutional weakness” in addressing it, and said the state had a “pending debt” to victims.

    UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances
    The UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances. Photo: Courtesy

    That language is gone now. By late 2025, the CNDH was warning against what it called attempts to “impose the idea” that foreign bodies should solve Mexico’s problems. Then, in early April 2026, the commission rejected the CED’s findings outright, calling them “biased” and “interventionist” and accusing civil society organizations of profiting from the human rights cause. The commission specifically criticized the CED for relying on input from groups like the Centro Prodh rather than weighing the government’s institutional efforts over the past seven years.

    The timing matters. The CED on April 2 took the extraordinary step of asking the UN secretary-general to refer Mexico’s disappearances crisis to the General Assembly — the first time the committee has used that mechanism for any country. The committee said it had found well-founded indications that enforced disappearances in Mexico have been and continue to be committed as crimes against humanity. It cited the discovery of more than 4,500 clandestine graves containing over 6,200 bodies, alongside roughly 72,000 unidentified human remains nationwide.

    Mexico’s official registry recorded 394,645 historical disappearance cases as of late March 2026, with 132,534 people still unaccounted for.

    Activist Eunice Rendón, coordinator of Agenda Migrante, said the commission’s transformation has been fundamental. Under Piedra’s leadership, she said, the CNDH has effectively stopped acting as a counterweight to state power and started defending it — questioning organizations and discrediting international mechanisms that exist precisely to fill the gaps left by domestic institutions. “This is especially serious in a country that has accumulated more than 130,000 people disappeared without being located, where the crisis is not discursive but humanitarian,” she said.

    Carolina Jasso González, a researcher at the Universidad Iberoamericana’s Citizen Security Program, noted the crisis predates any single administration. She traced its roots to the 1960s and said structural factors — including the militarization of public security and the evolution of criminal networks — have driven a steady increase in cases. Between January 2023 and April 2025 alone, nearly 29,000 new disappearances were registered.

    Carlos Torres, an academic at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México’s school of political and social sciences, said the commission’s reversal carries institutional consequences beyond the immediate controversy. When an autonomous body stops being uncomfortable for those in power, he argued, it loses its reason for being and leaves victims more exposed. Closing the door to international mechanisms in the middle of a crisis of this scale, he said, does not strengthen national sovereignty — it undermines it. “What is needed is to add capacities, not subtract them,” Torres said.

    The Mexico City Human Rights Commission has taken a notably different stance, publicly acknowledging the CED’s findings as a valuable tool for strengthening standards and access to international assistance — a contrast that several analysts pointed to as an example of how autonomous bodies can respond responsibly.

    Cases involving missing foreigners in Mexico have periodically drawn international attention. A Texas woman was found alive in Monterrey after 27 years, a rare outcome in a country where answers for families of the disappeared are the exception, not the rule.

    The federal government has also rejected the CED’s report, calling it “tendentious” and arguing it failed to credit recent institutional advances. President Claudia Sheinbaum has publicly denied that the state carries out enforced disappearances, attributing cases to organized crime.

    At a Glance: Mexico’s Disappearances Crisis

    • Mexico’s national registry lists 394,645 historical disappearance cases dating back to 1952
    • 132,534 people remain unaccounted for as of March 26, 2026
    • More than 4,500 clandestine graves have been found, containing over 6,200 bodies and 4,600 sets of human remains
    • Roughly 72,000 human remains nationwide remain unidentified
    • Approximately 29,000 new disappearances were recorded between January 2023 and April 2025
    • The CNDH is led by Rosario Piedra Ibarra, appointed in 2019
    • The UN’s CED invoked Article 34 of its founding convention — the first time in the committee’s history — to refer Mexico’s case to the UN General Assembly

    Source: El Universal

  • Mexico’s London Embassy Scandal: A Ghost Company, Diverted Funds, and 40 Ignored Warnings

    Mexico’s London Embassy Scandal: A Ghost Company, Diverted Funds, and 40 Ignored Warnings

    A former Mexican ambassador to the United Kingdom has formally accused a network of diplomats and foreign ministry officials of running a corruption scheme that diverted public funds through a fictitious cleaning company — and claims her warnings went unanswered for more than a year.

    The Mexican Embassy in London. File photo

    Josefa González-Blanco Ortiz-Mena, who served as Mexico’s ambassador in London from March 2021 until January 2026, filed an administrative handover report in February accusing former Administrative Attaché Érika Pardo Rodríguez of operating what the document describes as a “power fiefdom” within the embassy. A copy of the report was obtained by Aristegui Noticias.

    The Shell Company

    At the center of the alleged scheme is a firm called Easy Steps Cleaning Service LTD, which the report identifies as a shell company. According to the filing, the original contract with Easy Steps was signed in January 2021 by then-chargé d’affaires Aureny Aguirre O. Sunza. Over time, payments to the firm totaled approximately £140,950 — roughly MX$4 million (about US$197,000) — but the money appears to have gone elsewhere.

    González-Blanco says she and embassy staff personally verified that the bank accounts tied to Easy Steps actually belonged to Pardo Rodríguez and her daughter, spread across four accounts at HSBC, Wise, and Metro Bank. When staff attempted to transfer funds using the company name as the beneficiary, the bank flagged a mismatch. Substituting Pardo Rodríguez’s name resolved the alert.

    The alleged fraud didn’t stop there. The report describes doctored utility invoices — a British Gas bill for £26.37 was apparently altered to £2,026.37, with the difference deposited into a personal account. The report also accuses Pardo Rodríguez of using the credentials of former ambassador Aníbal Gómez Toledo — who left the London post in 2019 — to authorize transactions through at least late 2024, years after his departure.

    A visa sponsorship certificate was also issued in November 2024 to a person with no employment relationship to the embassy. British authorities confirmed the sponsorship, raising concerns about a possible immigration violation on top of the financial misconduct.

    A Year of Warnings

    González-Blanco says she began raising the alarm in December 2024 and followed up with formal audit requests in January 2025. Over the course of her effort to have Pardo Rodríguez removed, she sent more than 40 official communications and made two separate trips to Mexico City. Former Foreign Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente, she states in the report, refused to meet with her on three occasions.

    The Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (SRE), Mexico’s foreign ministry, tells a different story. The ministry says its deputy secretary and finance chief did meet with González-Blanco, which led to a supervisory visit in June 2025 and a formal audit that same month. The SRE says that audit is still being reviewed and that administrative processes will follow as warranted.

    What is not disputed is the timeline: Pardo Rodríguez did not leave her post until Aug. 1, 2025, months after the initial complaints. González-Blanco argues the delay amounted to institutional cover.

    A financial and compliance audit conducted between 2021 and 2025 identified 74 control actions — 46 corrective and 28 preventive. As of the embassy handover in January 2026, 31 remained unresolved.

    A Complicated Exit

    The ambassador’s own departure was not without controversy. El País reported that González-Blanco faced 16 workplace harassment complaints from embassy staff, with multiple resignations dating to late 2022. The SRE noted that six formal complaints were filed against her between June 2024 and January 2025.

    González-Blanco, for her part, argues the harassment allegations were a retaliation strategy by those she had accused of corruption. President Claudia Sheinbaum, asked about the case in early 2026, said the ambassador’s conduct had been reviewed and found acceptable.

    The former ambassador has been replaced by Alejandro Gertz Manero, former attorney general of Mexico.

    At a Glance

    • Former Ambassador Josefa González-Blanco Ortiz-Mena served in London from March 2021 to January 2026
    • The alleged scheme centered on shell company Easy Steps Cleaning Service LTD
    • Estimated funds diverted: £140,950 (roughly MX$4 million / US$197,000
    • González-Blanco sent 40+ official warnings; the SRE did not remove the accused official until August 2025
    • An internal audit found 74 compliance issues; 31 were unresolved at the time of the ambassador’s departure
    • A fraudulent visa sponsorship was confirmed by British authorities
    • The former ambassador herself faced 16 workplace harassment complaints filed by staff
    • She has been replaced by former Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero

    Source: Aristegui Noticias / Grupo Animal