[nanak]

"Snare," 19, posed for a photo at a center for minors in El Salvador.

Gang history

The notorious Mara Salvatrucha is reportedly linked to the Juárez cartel and has had its first confirmed encounter with El Paso police.

Mara Salvatrucha is created in the 1980s in Los Angeles by refugees from El Salvador.

The gang spreads to Central America when gang members are deported.

Gang members cross into Mexico after police crackdowns in recent years.

Violence associated with the gang makes headlines in northern Virginia last year.

Gang members are arrested along the Texas-Mexico border, including in El Paso.

El Paso gangs

Number of active gangs, tagging crews, and related groups: 456.

Gang members: 3,946.

Juveniles: 308.

Males: 3,440.

Females: 198.

Cases received by gang unit in 2004 as of November: 1,188.

Source: El Paso police gang unit.

[nanak]

Mara Salvatrucha is created in the 1980s in Los Angeles by refugees from El Salvador.

SALVADORAN REFUGEES doing jobs AMERICANS won't do, and contributing to AMERICAN society as well.

[bayourod]

Unlike California and some other states, Texas has been highly successful in suppressing violent gang crime by treating it as a local "criminal" problem.

If the voters in other states are content to allow their elected officials to ignore their violent crime by calling it an immigration problem, that is certainly their right.

The Texas Rangers were created to combat Mexican crime gangs on the border, and still do.

[gubamyster]

ping

[janetgreen]

He went for the machete

Welcome to third world America - gang members toting machetes...sickening.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Ping

[Gritty]

Bad vibes.

REAL bad.

[JustAnotherSavage]

The Immigrant Gang Plague (A Must Read)
City Journal (Published by the Manhattan Institute) ^ | Summer 2004 | Heather MacDonald

Posted on 08/06/2004 11:04:22 AM PDT by holyscroller

Before immigration optimists issue another rosy prognosis for America’s multicultural future, they might visit Belmont High School in Los Angeles’s overwhelmingly Hispanic, gang-ridden Rampart district. “Upward and onward” is not a phrase that comes to mind when speaking to the first- and second-generation immigrant teens milling around the school this January.
---snip----

Debate has recently heated up over whether Mexican immigration—unique in its scale and in other important ways—will defeat the American tradition of assimilation. The rise of underclass behavior among the progeny of Mexicans and other Central Americans must be part of that debate. There may be assimilation going on, but a significant portion of it is assimilation downward to the worst elements of American life. To be sure, most Hispanics are hardworking, law-abiding residents; they have reclaimed squalid neighborhoods in South Central Los Angeles and elsewhere. Among the dozens of Hispanic youths I interviewed, several expressed gratitude for the United States, a sentiment that would be hard to find among the ordinary run of teenagers. But given the magnitude of present immigration levels, if only a portion of those from south of the border goes bad, the costs to society will be enormous.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1186429/posts

[Mamzelle]

pinging you--What's your take, observations? I used to live in EP lo these many years.