Sens. Grassley, Ernst seek information, updates on Iowan reported missing in Mexico

Iowa's U.S. senators have asked the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar, shown here in a January 2012 file photo, for updates on the embassy's efforts to recover Iowan Chris Leguisano, who went missing in Mexico in August. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Iowa U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst are asking the U.S. ambassador to Mexico for regular updates on the Iowa woman who went missing in the country in August.

In a letter to U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar, also sent to Christopher Wray, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the two Iowa lawmakers asked for a status briefing by the end of the week and weekly updates on the embassy’s efforts to recover Chris Leguisano. Leguisano, 51, was reported reported missing Aug. 8 , after having traveled from Des Moines to Mexico to deliver a truck to a family member.

Leguisano was last seen in the city of Reynosa in Tamaulipas, Mexico, located less than an hour drive from the U.S. southern border leading into Hidalgo, Texas. The letter states that while in Mexico, the Iowa woman was “kidnapped for ransom.”

Edgar Chong Leguisano, Chris Leguisano’s son, said in an interview with WOI-TV said that he has received “ransom messages” from anonymous people asking for money in exchange for information about his mother’s whereabouts.

Ernst and Grassley wrote that this is the “second high-profile assault of an American citizen in Tamaulipas in the last two years.” In March 2023, four Americans crossing into Matamoros, Tamaulipas in a minivan were fired upon by unidentified gunmen before being put in a vehicle and taken by the armed individuals, according to the FBI . Only two of the four Americans survived the kidnapping.

The Republican senators wrote that attacks on U.S. citizens in foreign countries are “an affront to the United States.”

“The United States cannot and will not tolerate the assault of its citizens while traveling abroad,” Ernst and Grassley wrote. “By all public accounts, Ms. Leguisano’s kidnap was an act of extortion.”