Thread: How to Grow a Gang

The World In Numbers May 2008 Atlantic Monthly
By deporting record numbers of Latino criminals, the U.S. may make its gang problem worse.

by Matthew Quirk

How to Grow a Gang
With anti-immigrant sentiment rising, mass deportation is making a comeback. During fiscal 2006 and 2007, the number of deportation proceedings jumped from 64,000 to 164,000. This fiscal year, it is expected to hit 200,000, an all-time high.




Latino gang members have been targeted for particularly aggressive action. Since 2005, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) dragnets have swept up more than 6,000 suspected gangsters. From 2005 to 2007, arrests—usually preludes to deportation—increased more than fivefold.

The United States has been down this road before; the mid-1990s saw a similar wave of criminal deportations. That one helped turn a small gang from Los Angeles, Mara Salvatrucha (better known as MS-13), into an international menace and what Customs and Border Protection now calls America’s “most dangerous gang.â€

Bull Sh_T .... either deport them or put them so deep in a cell with minimal food for so long they come out of the cells as mushrooms at a very old age