Salvadorian Gangs

This New York Times article about rising violence along the US-Mexico border reveals just how dangerous the situation is down there. I'm glad to see a major East Coast media source finally reporting what us Southwesterners already know. Maybe now our political elites will realize that an open border causes more problems than the cheap labor is worth.

Mexican criminal syndicates are stepping up their attacks on American agents patrolling the border as officials of the Homeland Security Department intensify efforts to stem the flow of immigrants and drugs into the United States, American officials said this week.

In recent months, scores of Border Patrol agents have been fired upon or pelted with large stones as well as with cloth-covered stones that have been doused with flammable liquid and set ablaze. Since October, agents have been attacked in more than 190 cases, officials said on Thursday.

Most of the attacks have occurred along the Mexican border near San Diego, but shootings have also been reported along the border in Texas near the cities of Laredo and McAllen. In the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, there were 778 attacks on agents, up from 374 in the previous fiscal year, Homeland Security Department officials said.

The article also provides another puzzle piece to a question I've had since I first learned the source of Los Angeles' gang problem. As Heather MacDonald wrote in 2004:

Some of the most violent criminals at large today are illegal aliens. Yet in cities where the crime these aliens commit is highest, the police cannot use the most obvious tool to apprehend them: their immigration status. In Los Angeles, for example, dozens of members of a ruthless Salvadoran prison gang have sneaked back into town after having been deported for such crimes as murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and drug trafficking. Police officers know who they are and know that their mere presence in the country is a felony. Yet should a cop arrest an illegal gangbanger for felonious reentry, it is he who will be treated as a criminal, for violating the LAPD’s rule against enforcing immigration law.

Her essay mentions the Mara Salvatrucha and other Salvadorian gangs several times but never explains why illegal aliens from El Salvador are particularly troublesome. The NYT article fills in this blank:

But officials have struggled to find space for family groups and remain unable to process illegal immigrants from El Salvador because of a court ruling from the 1980's, when civil war wracked that country, that requires officials to allow Salvadorans to see judges before deportation.

So under current rules Salvadorians don't face "expedited removal" and can't be deported without seeing a judge. Even though I wasn't aware of this, you can bet the Salvadorians know (and anyone else who cares to pretend to be from El Salvador) -- ergo, ruthless Salvadorian street gangs.

The solution to the problem isn't an expanded work visa program as the President envisions. The solution is to close the border to illegal immigration. I won't be giving another cent to the GOP until they get some spine on this issue.