Julio Cesar Chavez Jnr was jailed in Mexico on Monday, nearly seven weeks after he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
The second-generation boxer and former middleweight titlist is currently being held in a jail in Hermosillo, Sonora, according to Mexico’s National Detention Registry. Documents show that he was taken into policy custody in Sonora after taken through the U.S./Mexico border checkpoint.
Confirmation of his being imprisoned in Mexico was confirmed by the nation’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, during her press conference on Tuesday morning.
“I understand [Chavez] was deported,” said Sheinbaum, who was elected in 2024 as the nation’s first ever woman to hold the office. “I don’t know if it was [Monday] or [Tuesday] morning but we were informed he is going to arrive in Mexico.
“There was an arrest warrant; this was communicated several weeks ago. When he was arrested [in Southern California], there was an arrest warrant in Mexico.”
Chavez, 54-7-1 (34 KOs) was arrested by federal agents on July 3, less than a week after he was “determined to be in the country illegally and removable on June 27, 2025” according to a previous statement issued by Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The timing unknowingly placed Chavez as a fugitive on the day of the weigh-in ahead of his June 28 cruiserweight clash with influencer Jake Paul in Anaheim, California. Chavez, the son of Hall of Fame legend Julio Cesar Chavez Snr, lost a ten-round, unanimous decision, to further send his boxing career into a freefall.
For now, that is the least of his worries.
It was insinuated that the 39-year-old is an affiliate of the Sinaloa Cartel, a drug trafficking crime syndicate identified by U.S. president Donald Trump as a foreign terrorist organization.
Chavez’s legal team dismissed the allegations as “outrageous and simply another headline to terrorize the community.”
However, authorities are prepared to go the distance with its alleged evidence to the contrary. DHS claimed that Chavez has an outstanding warrant in Mexico for his alleged involvement in organized crime and trafficking firearms, ammunition, and explosives. He was also due to appear in court last month on a separate weapons possession charge from 2024.
Chavez ran into immigration trouble in the U.S. after it was alleged by authorities that he provided “multiple fraudulent statements on his application to become a Lawful Permanent Resident.”
It was subsequently acknowledged by Sheinbaum that there was an active arrest order issued against the boxer since 2023. The warrant was never served, however, since he was predominantly in the U.S. during that time. .
“Our family is deeply saddened by the current situation,” the Chavez family said at the time in a joint statement provided to BoxingScene. “In these difficult times, we reiterate our total and unconditional support for Julio. We fully trust in his innocence and his humanity, as well as in the justice institutions of both Mexico and the United States, in whom we place our hope that this situation will be clarified according to law and truth.
“Julio is, above all, a son, a father, and a human being who has faced multiple challenges in his personal and professional life. As a family, we respectfully ask that due process be guaranteed and that premature judgments that violate his dignity and that of those around him be avoided.”
Chavez’s detainment came amidst the nation’s alarmingly aggressive approach to immigration in the U.S.
Protests and riots have broken out across the country, including Southern California, in opposition to the tactics rolled out by the Trump administration during his second term. Nearly 60,000 individuals have been taken into ICE detention since President Trump took office for the second time in January.
