(NewsNation) — A daughter is making a desperate plea for information in the disappearance of her mother, who was kidnapped from her home in Mexico.
Maria del Carmen Lopez was kidnapped Feb. 9 in Pueblo Nuevo, a municipality in the southwestern Mexican state of Colima, the FBI’s Los Angeles field office said in a release Thursday.
The agency is offering a $20,000 reward for information the the missing 63-year-old U.S. citizen.
“It’s been 37 days and we still do not have our mother with us,” Zonia Lopez, Maria’s daughter, said Friday on “CUOMO.” “We need our mother back.”
Lopez is also a Mexican citizen, according to a statement from the Colima Attorney General’s office. They said they’re working with the FBI on the investigation.
Zonia Lopez said the kidnappers have made a ransom demand, which the family is not able to pay. She has no idea why Mexican cartels would target her mother.
“My mother is living a quiet life. It’s a very small town, there was no enemies, never any signs of threat or anything that she would be in any kind of danger,” Lopez said.
Former FBI Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer said what happened to Lopez is a “typical” type of kidnap-for-ransom scenario perpetrated by Mexican cartels.
“They’re pros,” Coffindaffer said of the suspects. “This is strictly them profiling (Lopez) as somebody who was a U.S. citizen and could be able to pay such a ransom.”
There are currently 550 Americans missing in Mexico, according to the Washington Post. That’s just a small number compared to the 112,000 Mexican nationals missing in Mexico, some even dating back to a decade.
In a reated development, Texas House Republicans introduced a bill that would give some citizens authority to arrest migrants who illegally cross the southern border. Rep. Matt Schaefer filed House Bill 20, which proposes the creation of a Texas border protection.
If the bill is passed, it will give some citizens the authority to “arrest, detain, and deter individuals crossing the border illegally, including with the use of non-deadly force.”
The bill states that Texas Gov. Republican Greg Abbott “shall appoint a citizen of the United States” as the border protection unit’s chief. The unit’s selected chief would be allowed to employ “law-abiding citizens without a felony conviction” to participate in the unit.
