Cabinet Profile: Rosa Icela Rodriguez, Secretary of the Interior

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by Allan Wall

Secretaria de Gobernación is translated into English as “Secretary of the Interior”, but that doesn’t mean she is in charge of Mexican national parks.

The Secretaria de Gobernación is a very important official. Her department is Secretaría de Gobernación, known as SEGOB, the Secretariat of the Interior.

The Secretary of Gobernación is in charge of the government’s domestic administration and has many responsibilities, including the presentation of presidential decrees and proposals to Congress and the publication of new laws in the Diario Oficial de la Federación

The Secretary of Gobernación through the SEGOB bureaucracy is in charge of the following programs and departments:
1. The CNI Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, the National Intelligence Center.
2. The National Personal Identification Service
3. The Administration of Mexican Federal Islands.
4. Policies involving churches and other religious groups.
5. The General Archive of the Nation.
6. Disaster Relief
7. Lotteries
8. General Directorate of Radio, Television and Cinematography
9. The expulsion of foreigners from Mexico.

Mexico does not have a Vice-President but if the President is unable to perform her duties, the Secretary of the Interior would assume them until a replacement is selected by Congress.

So yes, it’s a very important post. The current Secretary of the Interior, Rosa Icela Rodriguez. was born in 1959 in the state of San Luis Potosi.

San Luis Potosi state in red. Source: TUBS

She later moved to Mexico City where she studied journalism and then worked as a journalist for various media organizations.

Rosa Icela Rodriguez served in various posts of the government of Mexico City under Mexico City Chiefs Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Marcelo Ebrard, Miguel Angel Mancera, and Claudia Sheinbaum (2 of whom later became president).

Under the national presidency of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), Rosa Icela Rodriguez served as general coordinator of Ports and the Merchant Marine and later she was the Secretaria de Seguridad y Protección Ciudadana (SSPC), the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, from 2020 to 2024.

On July 4th, 2024, then-President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum named her as Secretary of the Interior. Rosa Icela Rodriguez assumed this post on October 1st, the day of Sheinbaum’s inauguration as President of Mexico.

Source: Mexico News Report

San Luis Potosi Post