Mexican president still vows to give National Guard control to Army

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s president vowed Wednesday to try again to give control of the National Guard to the Army, despite a Supreme Court ruling against such a move.

The Supreme Court had ruled the Constitution mandates the Guard must be kept under civilian control within the Public Safety Department.

But President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he hopes his party can win a Congress majority in the 2024 elections and change the Constitution. For now, López Obrador said he would instruct the Public Safety Department to appoint a retired general to lead the quasi-military guard.

López Obrador said Army control of the National Guard is needed to prevent the force from becoming corrupt, as he claimed the now-dissolved Federal Police had become.

About 80% of the National Guard’s 130,000 members are activeduty soldiers on loan from the Army and Navy, where they preserve their ranks and benefits. Even civilian recruits are subjected to military training.

Analysts say the use of soldiers on loan to the Guard is creating a bookkeeping headache, because they have to keep some Guard officers on military pay grades and benefits schedules, separate from other members.

López Obrador said he will order Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez to visit National Guard headquarters throughout Mexico to reassure the military members of the force that they will keep their benefits and ranks.

López Obrador also lashed out at eight of 11 Supreme Court justice who voted against his plan, saying they “acted as part of a faction, not on judicial criteria but on political ones.”

The president’s supporters say Mexico has to use military personnel in civilian law enforcement because Mexico’s drug cartels are so powerful and well armed.

But the military has been implicated in a series of human rights abuses that are beginning to taint the National Guard.

In the border city of Nuevo Laredo, National Guard members opened fire on a civilian SUV over the weekend, killing a pregnant 15-year-old woman and a 54-year-old man and wounding two other people. The National Guard has not responded to requests for comment on the deaths.