Why did Trump roll out the red carpet for El Chapo’s family?

Since returning to the White House in January 2025, Donald Trump has put the fight against immigration back at the heart of his agenda, promising a near-hermetic closure of the southern border and implementing controversial measures aimed at mass deportation of migrants already on US soil.

Nearly 20 relatives of the notorious drug lord crossed the U.S. border thanks to a deal made with the Trump administration.

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast.bsky.social) 2025-05-14T18:25:11.301Z

Yet, according to The Daily Beast, in May, some twenty people close to Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the former leader of the dreaded Mexican Sinaloa cartel, currently serving a life sentence in an ultra-secure prison in Colorado, quietly crossed the US border, with the explicit endorsement of the Trump administration.

According to the Mexican authorities, the entry of El Chapo’s relatives into the United States was not an impromptu escape. They claim that it was authorized under a confidential agreement between the Trump administration and El Chapo’s son, Ovidio Guzmán, who is currently incarcerated in the United States. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum expressed surprise at this operation, which was carried out without bilateral coordination.

Yet this same cartel has been officially classified as a terrorist organization by Washington since 2024, a designation established under the Biden administration to broaden the legal means to combat its transnational operations.

While Trump claims an ironclad migration policy, his behind-the-scenes arrangements with drug-trafficking figures are drawing sharp criticism and revealing troubling exceptions.

This blatant breach highlights Donald Trump’s double standards: while he is stepping up mass deportations of migrants, often settled for years on American soil, to third countries or even Salvadoran prisons, he is rolling out the red carpet for relatives of a Mexican cartel classified as a terrorist.

Several days after the revelation of this information, no official explanation had yet been provided as to why Donald Trump had, in May, mysteriously opened the doors of American territory to El Chapo’s family.