US revokes tourist visa of sitting Baja California governor in surprise diplomatic slight

Baja California Governor Marina del Pilar Ávila announced implicit the play that the United States has revoked tourer visas for her and her husband, Carlos Torres Torres.

The action, confirmed by Baja California officials, marks an unprecedented diplomatic rift involving a sitting Mexican authorities leader. Ávila, 39, was elected politician successful 2021 aft serving 17 months arsenic the archetypal pistillate politician of Mexicali.

The Morena enactment subordinate did not specify the crushed for the revocation but linked it to a “complex binational context” requiring “my composure and prudence.”

In societal media posts connected Facebook and X, she expressed assurance the substance would beryllium “satisfactorily clarified for some of us.”

The U.S. Embassy declined to comment, saying lone that “visa records are confidential and that the details of idiosyncratic cases cannot beryllium discussed,” according to the Associated Press.

As of midday Monday, neither U.S. nor Mexican officials had provided further updates.

The politician of Baja California, Marina del Pilar Ávila, with her hubby Carlos Torres, a person and subordinate of the ruling Morena party. (@MarinadelPilar/X)

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her medication had not been formally notified by U.S. authorities and urged caution until authoritative details emerge.

Like his wife, whom helium joined successful 2019, Torres is simply a person and a subordinate of the ruling Morena party.

The 49-year-old was a subordinate of Mexico’s little location of Congress, the Chamber of Deputies, from 2006 to 2009 and is presently a coordinator of strategical projects for the metropolis of Tijuana.

He announced the revocation of his visa connected Friday, saying the enactment “corresponds to interior processes of the [U.S.] State Department” and that it “does not represent an accusation, probe oregon ceremonial accusation by immoderate authority, either successful Mexico oregon successful the United States.”

According to CNN, Ávila was visited past Thursday by the U.S. consul wide successful Tijuana, Christopher Teal, with whom she discussed determination bilateral issues specified arsenic security, economical improvement and quality rights. Teal was appointed to the station successful August.

Last month, the politician visited San Diego for the Tianguis Turístico, an yearly league for tourism professionals that was hosted this twelvemonth successful Rosarito, Baja California, but included 2 days of events northbound of the border.

Just a fewer weeks ago, the politician visited San Diego, which participated successful a binational variation of the yearly tourism just Tianguis Turístico. (@MarinadelPilar/X)

Earlier this year, the U.S. revoked the enactment and question visas for the Mexican set Los Alegres del Barranco aft it paid tribute successful a unrecorded opus to a cause lord, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes. Shortly thereafter, U.S. officials said each Mexican “narcocorrido” singers would beryllium astatine risk.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced connected April 30 a “one-strike” argumentation for each impermanent visa holders.

In a papers titled “100 Days of an America First State Department,” Rubio stated, “There is present a one-strike policy: Catch-And-Revoke. Whenever the authorities catches non-U.S. citizens breaking our laws, we volition instrumentality enactment to revoke their status. The clip of contemptuously taking vantage of our nation’s generosity ends.”

On Sunday, 7 mayors successful Baja California, each from the Morena party, publically backed Ávila, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. The paper said the party’s authorities enactment called the concern “a purely administrative procedure” and that the reasons down it “are not ever made nationalist and should not beryllium utilized to tarnish careers built with effort and fashionable legitimacy.”

With reports from Reforma, El Economista, Fox 5–KUSI, El Financiero, Associated Press and CNN