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When border crossings grew out of control in 2023, the U.S. pressured Mexico to do something. Officials rebuked the immigration chief and stripped him of a key power, an investigation shows.
The Americans were not happy.
The migrant situation at the border was out of control, they said, and Mexico was not doing enough to stop it, according to officials from both countries.
In fact, the crisis was worse than Mexican officials had been led to believe by their own immigration chief, Francisco Garduño Yáñez.
The revelation in October 2023 led Mexico’s defense secretary at the time to fly into a rage at an emergency meeting, officials with knowledge of the encounter said.
“You fooled me,” the defense secretary, Luis Cresencio Sandoval González, yelled at Mr. Garduño, according to two people familiar with the incident.
The defense secretary regularly briefed Mexico’s then-president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. But, Mr. Sandoval had learned days earlier from the Americans that the migrant crisis was more dire than he realized.
“You hid information from me, making me lie to the president,” the defense secretary lashed out.
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