The US State Department has revoked visas held by members of a Mexican band for “glorifying a drug kingpin”.
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said the band, Los Alegres del Barranco, had projected an image of El Mencho onto a screen at a recent concert in Mexico.
El Mencho, whose real name is Nemesio Oseguera Ramos, is the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), one of the most feared transnational drug trafficking gangs.
The CJNG is one of eight criminal groups which the Trump administration recently declared “foreign terrorist organisations” as part of its strategy to “ensure the total elimination” of these groups in the US.
In a post on X, Landau wrote “in the Trump Administration, we take seriously our responsibility over foreigners’ access to our country”.
He added that “the last thing we need is a welcome mat for people who extol criminals and terrorists”.
Los Alegres del Barranco had been scheduled to perform more than a dozen concerts in US states including Oklahoma, Texas, Alabama, Kentucky and California.
Their music and that of other norteño bands has gained a large following in the US, particularly in areas where Mexican-Americans live.
The band fell foul of both the US and the Mexican authorities on Saturday when they displayed an image of El Mencho during their concert in the Mexican city of Zapopan.
It was projected while they played a song which praises him as “a man of war who loves his family” and extols his exploits as the leader of the “cartel with four letters”, a thinly veiled reference to the CJNG.
Narcocorridos, songs praising drug cartel leaders, are not uncommon in Mexico.
Many bands playing norteña music – a genre characterised by catchy lyrics often sung to a polka-inspired rhythm and accompanied by an accordion and the twelve-stringed bajo sexto – are paid by drug barons to compose these songs.
Some bands rely on income early in their careers from being hired to play at private parties, many of which are hosted by people involved in or with connections to the cartels.
The song praising El Mencho is not the only narcocorrido in Los Alegres del Barranco’s repertoire.
An earlier song entitled The 701 is about the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, and how he rose to number 701 in Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s richest people.
Composed before El Chapo was jailed, it describes him as “the world’s most wanted man” who is not only rich because he has “many banknotes” but also because he “can count on the friendship of the people”, the song claims.
The concert at which the band projected the image of El Mencho came just weeks after relatives searching for disappeared loved ones came across a ranch that has been described by the authorities as a “training and extermination camp” for the CJNG.
Hundreds of abandoned shoes and suitcases, as well as bone fragments and ovens, found at the ranch seem to indicate that the cartel used it to train people it had recruited forcibly or by deception, killing those who resisted.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum was among those who criticised the band.
Asked about the incident at her morning news conference, she said that “this shouldn’t happen, it’s not right” and ordered an investigation.
The singer of Los Alegres del Barranco appeared pleased by the mention of his band during the president’s news conference.
Speaking in a video published on TikTok, he answered a fan’s question about it, saying “how cool” it was and thanking people “for all the support we have received”.
