This Is For The Mara Salvatrucha is the first non-fiction narrative about the MS-13. It tells the story of Brenda Paz, a young street gang member who betrayed her gang and became an informant, revealing a previously unknown threat across America.
by Samuel Logan
I took a call today from CNN in London, and they’ve asked me to be on the CNN Int’l show, Connect the World with Becky Anderson. I’m told it will be a 4 - 6 minute segment, starting at 4:30PM, EST.
I’ll be talking about the presence of Mexican drug trafficking organizations across the world, focusing on India and China, the Americas, the US, and Europe.
Hopefully they’ll plug my book!
Tune in if you can…
I added three questions to this part:
Q: Currently, what is happening on the US - Mexico border?
A: When Mexican President Calderon entered office in December, 2006, he ignored the tacit agreement that had existed for decades between Mexican criminals and the Mexican federal government. His offensive against Mexican organized crime has intensified and accelerated the cycle of calm-violence-calm that Mexico has experienced on the border since at least the 1920s, when Mexican cowboys smuggled tequila into Arizona and New Mexico. As these criminal insurgencies evolve, they rely more and more upon street gangs in the US, such as the MS-13, to carry out their dirty work inside US borders.
Q: How has our government’s policy toward Latino immigrants - both legal and illegal - affected the growth of Latino gangs in this country?
A: The federal government has focused on exclusion, not inclusion. By removing illegal aliens - regardless of their status, contributions, or behaviors - authorities have incited a distrust of all authority in Latino communities. Immigrants live with the fear of deportation, whether they’re legal or not, because they do not trust the police. There is a wall between these communities and the rest of society, and Latino gangs thrive, protected by that wall. They prey upon their own countrymen. They hide in plain sight.
Q: In your opinion, what changes should the Obama administration make to US immigration policy?
A: The Obama administration must realize what many local police across the country already know: the next cycle of violent crime in this country will come from within immigrant communities, full of both hard working people and criminals. Members of these communities are already the best sources of information for gang-related crime, yet they do not trust the police. Obama’s team should promote an immigration debate that highlights this fact, and one that promotes a focus on illegal criminal aliens, not the hard working men and women who help keep our economy afloat.
DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano has already begun to shift law enforcement’s focus away from aggressive deportation of all illegal aliens to a focus on criminals only. She may also direct attention toward disciplining business owners who hire illegal aliens, rather than staging workplace raids. The immigration policy itself may not change anytime soon, but shifts in enforcement will go a long way towards including, not excluding, the very people who are in the best position to help law enforcement solve violent crime cases.
Q: How is the MS-13 structured?
A: The MS-13 is a network with numerous, interlinked groups spread across 42 states and over 1,200 cities in the United States. These groups, called “cliques”, are loosely organized with one older leader, called the primera palabra or “first word”, a secretary, a treasurer, and, often times, a number of members who specialize in stealing cars, smuggling illegal immigrants, or murder.
When I interviewed the MS-13 member Veto, a “first word” in Brenda’s clique in Texas, he was serving time in a maximum-security prison. He told me of his goal to expand the MS-13 across Texas, in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Brownsville. With his cliques in place, he planned to operate a human smuggling ring, bringing Salvadorians through Mexico and up to Brownsville before sending them to Los Angeles and Northern Virginia. His contacts in El Salvador would have also facilitated this process.
The MS-13 is also a transnational gang, with close ties to thousands of members who live in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. From prison cells near San Salvador, senior MS-13 gang members can make one phone call and the next day someone in Charlotte, North Carolina will be found dead, stabbed to death. Such an extension of power - across nations - is part of what makes the MS-13 one of the most dangerous street gangs in America.
