El Chapo asks U.S. judge to transfer him back to Mexico
El Chapo has asked a Brooklyn judge to send him back to Mexico, arguing ADX Florence amounts to “cruel punishment” and constitutional violations.
Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has asked a federal judge in Brooklyn to order his transfer back to Mexico, pressing a claim that his confinement at the nation’s most restrictive prison amounts to “cruel punishment.” In handwritten letters dated April 20 and April 23, 2026, Guzman asked U.S. District Judge Brian M. Cogan to move him out of ADX Florence in Colorado and said the documents behind his sentence had gone unanswered.
The request lands more than seven years after Guzman was sentenced in the Eastern District of New York on July 17, 2019, to life in prison plus 30 years. Judge Cogan also ordered him to forfeit $12.6 billion after Guzman was convicted by a federal jury on February 12, 2019, following a three-month trial on all 10 counts of a superseding indictment. Guzman was extradited to the United States in 2017 after escaping from Mexican prisons twice.
ADX Florence, also known as the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” is the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. The Bureau of Prisons describes it as an administrative security U.S. penitentiary in Fremont County, Colorado, built for men the system considers among the most dangerous prisoners in federal custody.
Guzman’s latest letters invoked protections under the First through Fifth Amendments and renewed complaints that he has been waiting for an appeal for three years. He also said the verdict was unfair and asked to be sent back to the country where he was born. Earlier prison letters had already raised concerns about isolation, poor cell conditions and a lack of family visits. In 2023, he wrote to then-Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador alleging “psychological torment.”
The prison-policy hurdles are steep. The Bureau of Prisons says transfers under its treaty program require approval from both the United States and the receiving country, and its rules specifically say Mexican inmates serving life sentences are not eligible for treaty transfer consideration. That makes Guzman’s request a direct challenge to the limits of international prisoner transfer policy, even before any court weighs the substance of his constitutional claims.
The case also places renewed attention on ADX Florence itself, which has housed Ted Kaczynski, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Zacarias Moussaoui and Terry Nichols. Guzman’s complaints now sit at the intersection of punishment, confinement and diplomacy, with the judge who oversaw his cartel trial once again facing a demand that tests how far the federal system will go in the name of security.
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