President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico said on Friday that she expects the prominent boxer Julio César Chávez Jr. to be deported to Mexico to face charges of arms trafficking, a day after American officials announced they had detained him for being in the United States illegally.
Citing Mexico’s attorney general, Ms. Sheinbaum said prosecutors had begun investigating the boxer in 2019 and had issued an arrest warrant in March 2023. She said Mexico had been unable to detain Mr. Chávez because “he lived most of the time in the United States.”
“We now hope he can be deported and he can serve his sentence in Mexico,” she said.
Mr. Chávez’s detention by federal U.S. agents in Studio City, Calif., was announced on Thursday the Department of Homeland Security , citing the arrest warrant in Mexico. It also said that Mr. Chávez was thought to be “an affiliate” of the Sinaloa Cartel, a powerful crime syndicate and fentanyl smuggler that the U.S. and Mexican authorities have sought to crack down on.
A former World Boxing Council middleweight champion, Mr. Chávez, 39, is the son of a Mexican boxing legend, Julio César Chávez Sr., who appeared with Mexico’s president twice in recent months, at a news conference and a government event in Mexico City that drew tens of thousands of people. The younger Mr. Chávez was detained just days after he lost a high-profile bout in Anaheim, Calif., against the former YouTuber Jake Paul.
A lawyer representing Mr. Chávez, Michael A. Goldstein, said that his client had been picked up by a group of more than two dozen immigration and law enforcement agents outside of his home.
“The current allegations are outrageous and appear to be designed as a headline to terrorize the community,” Mr. Goldstein said, adding that Mr. Chávez was not a threat to the public.
An escalation in immigration operations in Los Angeles, which has the largest undocumented population in the country, recently led to protests and to legal challenges by immigrants rights groups that claim the tactics of federal officers in Southern California have been excessive and even unconstitutional.
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Mr. Chávez’s arrest also comes as the Trump administration has zeroed in on Mexican cartels. Earlier this year, amid tariff negotiations, the Mexican government agreed to send more than two dozen people accused of being cartel heads to be tried in the United States, a departure from the government’s previous stance on extraditions.
Late Thursday, Mr. Chávez’s family said they had “full confidence” in his innocence. “At this difficult time, we reiterate our full and unconditional support for Julio,” said a statement posted online by the elder Mr. Chávez. “We respectfully ask that due legal process be guaranteed and that early judgments that violate his dignity, and the dignity of those around him, be avoided.”
The U.S. authorities said that Mr. Chávez had entered the United States legally in 2023 with a B2 tourist visa, but that it had expired in 2024. He then filed for lawful permanent resident status based on his marriage to a U.S. citizen, who U.S. officials said was “connected to the Sinaloa Cartel through a prior relationship” with a son of the cartel leader Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo.
“Following multiple fraudulent statements on his application to become a lawful permanent resident, he was determined to be in the country illegally and removable on June 27, 2025,” the department said.
Mr. Chávez’s wife, Frida Muñoz, was El Chapo’s daughter-in-law through her previous marriage to Edgar Guzmán López, who was killed in a 2008 gun battle in Sinaloa State.
After El Chapo escaped prison through a tunnel in 2015, the Mexican authorities froze bank accounts belonging to Ms. Muñoz in 2015, arguing that the accounts could help operations of the Sinaloa Cartel, according to Mexican news outlets. The authorities unblocked the accounts again in 2018, after the drug lord was recaptured and extradited to the United States, where he is now serving a life sentence.
Ms. Muñoz has since become an internet personality in her own right, with more than 80,000 followers on Instagram.
Through live broadcasts on Instagram, Mr. Chávez has also described relationships with at least one other member of El Chapo’s family. “I get along with Ovidio, to tell you the truth,” he said in 2022, referring to Ovidio Guzmán López, one of the drug lord’s sons, who is now in U.S. custody facing federal drug charges. “I’m very fond of him, and I don’t want to know about the things they say about him, that doesn’t interest me,” Mr. Chávez said at the time.
The Department of Homeland Security added that Mr. Chávez had been convicted in California in 2012 on charges of driving under the influence of alcohol, and arrested in 2024 on weapons charges.
Mr. Chávez’s lawyer said in his statement that the boxer was in full compliance with his court obligations. “He has not been convicted of any gun charges,” the lawyer said, adding that the gun charges were expected to be dismissed altogether after a court granted his client a mental health diversion.
Emiliano Rodríguez Mega is a reporter and researcher for The Times based in Mexico City, covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
Annie Correal reports from the U.S. and Latin America for The Times.
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