Sheinbaum halted by protesters over unfulfilled promises

Zumpango, State of Mexico — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum was stopped as she began a train journey on the new Lechería-AIFA line.

Residents of San Miguel Xaltocan, a town in the municipality of Nextlalpan located next to the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA), jumped the fence guarding the Suburban Train, on which President Claudia Sheinbaum was traveling, to access the platform and demand the public works promised since 2019 in exchange for the land used to build the airport terminal.

Claudia Sheinbaum Traveled Without Security or Protection

Without security or protection, the neighbors reached the window where she was traveling.

“The main promise they haven’t fulfilled is the drainage and water collector, but they also committed to a university, a high school, a ceremonial center, a sports facility, and a hospital,” said Francisco Xavier Arrieta via telephone, one of the residents who managed to speak with the president.

Last October, while visiting those affected by rains in Veracruz, Sheinbaum received complaints about the inaction of local authorities.

Also in August, a group of people in Chiapas asked her to put an end to the violence caused by the territorial dispute between two drug cartels.

Yesterday, Sheinbaum was aboard the first test run of the Suburban Train on the Lechería-AIFA section and had not made any stops; however, she had to stop to listen to the protesters.

The residents reproached the failure to fulfill the works promised in an assembly on March 10, 2019, when they were asked for authorization to build the AIFA, which encompassed lands from the town.

“We supported Andrés Manuel López Obrador,” they complained to her. “They haven’t attended to us, they haven’t fulfilled everything they promised,” they told her. “Yes, yes,” responded the president, leaning out of a window in the cabin.

She Commits to Addressing the Matter

Xavier Arrieta, an official in the municipality governed by Morena, stated that he is a Morena party militant and that “surely” the president is unaware of the demands due to the inefficiency of officials from the Interior Ministry and Sedatu.

“She committed to taking action on the matter,” he said regarding the president’s response.

Since 2022, when the AIFA was inaugurated by López Obrador, the residents of Xaltocan have been complaining about the failure to fulfill the urban improvement works offered to them in March 2019 in exchange for ceding 304 hectares of ejidal land and 128 hectares of communal land to the National Defense Ministry for the construction of the train.

“The only thing they did was relocate the schools, but the lights are already falling. The health center also doesn’t have drainage, and some time ago the doctors protested because there are no medicines,” commented a neighbor who was a representative of Xaltocan in 2019.

Sheinbaum traveled the promised section in 37 minutes, a section promised for June 2022 and which she hopes to inaugurate before Holy Week, which begins on March 29.

“Why did it take time to complete this work, even though it’s only a few kilometers? Because there was a lot of social conflict, many neighborhoods, municipalities were asking for many works to be done at the same time as the train, and rightly so,” justified the president.