By Pedro Salvador Guerrero
The following is an English translation[1] from today’s “Detector de Mentiras”[2]. This week’s segment focuses on dishonest claims about the judicial election, false reports of the closing of consulates and refugee offices, Middle East battle videos wrongly labeled as Mexican conflicts, and AI-generated untrue reports about American companies.
Transcript translation:
Over the past week, social media users and commentators have promoted the lie that the Mexican government has cut the budget for welfare programs. Why attack programs that have contributed to Mexico being the country in Latin America and the Caribbean that has most reduced poverty, as recognized by the World Bank?
On the other hand, lies have also circulated about the closure of Mexican consulates in the United States and even that the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance will cease operations. Let’s watch this week’s lie detector video:
False closures of Mexican consulates and offices in the Comarca region and false relocations of companies from the United States to Mexico are some of the fake news that the lie detector detected this week.
1. Irregularities that occur in the 2025 judicial elections cannot be challenged. “To begin with, political parties have no representation on anybody of the INE[3] in these elections. Nor do candidates for judges have the right to representatives and, therefore, are effectively unable to challenge irregularities that occur at the polling stations.” [4]
False!
Article 99 of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States establishes that the Electoral Tribunal is responsible for resolving, definitively and without fail, in the terms of this Constitution and as provided by law, challenges to the elections of justices of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, magistrates of the Judicial Disciplinary Tribunal, circuit magistrates, and district judges.
2. The Mexican government is considering closing 13 consulates in the United States.
False!
The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied that the Mexican government is considering closing approximately 13 consulates in the United States. The Ministry added that it is working to strengthen the consular network in that country.
3. COMAR[5] closed offices in Mexico.
False!
Posts circulated in WhatsApp, Facebook, and Telegram groups falsely claiming the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance had closed its offices. However, Comar did not close any of its offices. The commission currently has nine representative offices and four liaison offices throughout Mexico. It was the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, that announced the closure of four of its offices in Mexico in May 2025.
4. Video of a clash between the National Guard and organized crime in the municipality of Elota, Sinaloa. “The images you will see below on your screen are not from a movie; they are from Sinaloa. It is a clash between “La Chapiza” and “La Mayiza”. Just watch. The video went viral on social media today.”[6]
False!
The original video shows a battle in Harib, Yemen, between the Southern Giants Brigades and Houthi militias. It was published on March 7 by the X account @nehmmedia. On May 1, 2025, Carlos Loret de Mola apologized on his X account for using the fake video in his Latino newscast. But this isn’t the first time he’s apologized for publishing fake news or fabrications on television. In 2013 and 2020, Loret de Mola apologized for not noticing the development of the Florence Casés case fabrication on television. “And I reiterated what I’ve been saying for 15 years. I made a journalistic error. I didn’t realize it was a fabrication.”
5. Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Walmart, and Google are leaving the United States and relocating to Mexico due to the tariffs imposed by Donald Trump. “It’s official. Five giants are leaving the US and relocating their operations to Mexico.”
False!
The video posted on TikTok by the account @fernando.news0 is fake and was generated using artificial intelligence. Furthermore, the investments announced by Amazon, Microsoft, and Google in Mexico have no relation to the imposition of tariffs on international trade by the United States.
6. Spending on social programs by the Ministry of Welfare fell because the government is bankrupt.
False!
The difference in the budget execution between 2024 and 2025 corresponds to the advance of payments made in 2024 due to the “blindaje electoral”[7]. In the January-February period of fiscal year 2024, the Ministry of Welfare made payments for pensions and welfare programs corresponding to the first three two-month periods of 2024, spending 234 billion pesos. For the first two-month period of 2025, only the January-February period was delivered, that is, 90 billion pesos.
[1] This translation provides an English written version of this segment from May 7, 2025, ensuring accessibility for English-speaking or reading audiences interested in Mexican political discourse and media narratives.
[2] “El Detector de Mentiras” (The Lie Detector) is a Wednesday segment from the daily presidential press conference in Mexico, the “Mañanera del Pueblo”, produced by “Infodemia,” and presented by Miguel Ángel Elorza-Vásquez. It is designed to address misinformation in national and international media coverage of Mexico.
[3] National Electoral Institute (INE) is an autonomous, public agency responsible for organizing federal elections in Mexico, that is, those related to the election of the President of the United Mexican States, the members of the Congress of the Union as well as elections of authorities and representatives at local and state levels.
[4] Quote from Lorenzo Córdoba, former Director of the INE and longtime member of the political opposition to Morena.
[5] The Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR) is the Mexican government agency responsible for processing refugee status applications.
[6] Quote from Carlos Loret de Mola, Mexican journalist and head of Latinus, a right-wing media platform animist with the Mexican government.
[7] Mexico’s “blindaje electoral” (electoral shield) refers to a set of government measures aimed at preventing the misuse of public resources and social programs to influence voters during electoral periods.
Related: ‘El Detector de Mentiras’ – Mañanera del Pueblo, Week 18/2025
Mexican Press Agency is part of ALMA, which is dedicated to news and information about Mexico and Mexicans in the United States and is a fiscally sponsored project of Social Focus, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Redwood City, California.
