José Luis Dagnino López, the mayor of San Felipe, will go down in history as the first mayor of the port city since its establishment as a municipality, but also because the United States government revoked his tourist visa.
The mayor, originally from Guasave, Sinaloa, but a resident of San Felipe for most of his life, was detained when he attempted to cross into the United States on the night of Tuesday, December 2, in Calexico, California. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) authorities stopped him and informed him of the revocation of his visa.
The mayor of San Felipe was wearing a polo shirt and a black jacket. When he arrived with border security personnel, he was informed of a series of unspecified background checks and connections, to which Dagnino López responded that he preferred to return to Mexico, and so he did. For years, José Luis Dagnino López has been linked to the criminal group known as the Cartel del Mar (Cartel of the Sea), led by Óscar Parra Aispuro, alias El Tekolín or El Parra, with whom he has a family relationship because a brother of the mayor married a sister of the alleged leader of the criminal organization.
El Parra was arrested and spent five years in prison on charges of murdering a soldier, but he regained his freedom after a judge dismissed one of the main pieces of evidence against him. Furthermore, the two witnesses in the case, both soldiers, deserted from the Army and did not return to testify.
Dagnino López joins the list of Morena party officials and council members whose tourist visas have been revoked due to President Donald Trump’s new policies. Among those affected are Governor Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda; her ex-husband, Carlos Torres Torres; Luis Samuel Guerrero Delgado, the husband of the Mayor of Mexicali, Norma Alicia Bustamante (whose visa has not been revoked because she has not crossed into the United States); and Araceli Brown Figueredo, the former mayor of Playas de Rosarito and Federal Deputy.
