Mexico's Congress approves reform to expedite the search for missing persons
The proposal of President Claudia Sheinbaum's government proposes the creation of a biometric population registration key, known as CURP, as a physical and digital identification document that must carry fingerprints and a photograph.
Protests in Mexico over missing persons and inaction by authorities.
Mexico's Congress on Monday afternoon approved a reform to strengthen authorities' capabilities in the search for missing persons, and which includes a population registry with biometric data.
Mexico has registered more than 125,000 missing persons since 1952, although most of the records were created since 2006, when the government launched a controversial military anti-drug operation.
The reform was approved by the Chamber of Deputies after the Senate gave it the go-ahead last week.
Sheinbaum's proposal
The proposal of President Claudia Sheinbaum's government proposes the creation of a biometric population registration key, known in Mexico as CURP, as a physical and digital identification document that must have fingerprints and a photograph.
With this, it is intended that the authorities will be able to carry out real-time searches for missing persons. This registry will feed a single identity platform and will be connected to forensic and administrative databases.
The crisis of missing persons in Mexico has led to the formation of various civilian search groups made up of their relatives, who often search for them in rough terrain and at the mercy of organized crime gangs.
Number of missing persons in Mexico is alarming
According to the National Registry of Missing Persons (RNPDNO), there are more than 125,000 people in Mexico whose whereabouts are unknown. According to the data, 88% of the total number of missing persons reports began in 2006, when the first stage of the Mexican War on Drug Trafficking (Operativo Conjunto Michoacan) began, under the presidency of Felipe Calderon.
Until this July 1, 2025 (since 1952), there were 129,789 "missing or unaccounted for" persons, of which 99,623 were men; 29,745 were women and 421 were of undefined sex.
The ranch "of horrors"
The Search collective Guerreros Buscadores de Jalisco was the first to denounce on March 5 that it found clothes and charred skeletal remains in a place that civil organizations described as a "training and extermination camp."
According to the Jalisco Prosecutor's Office, 1,308 objects of people presumed missing were found at the Teuchitlan ranch.
The place, known as Izaguirre ranch, was first raided last September after police and national guardsmen clashed with alleged Jalisco Cartel - New Generation hitmen.
The government denied that it was an "extermination camp," while assuring that investigations would continue. In the last two months, the subject has not come up again in the media.
LATEST
