America Runs Amok - MS-13 And The Welcome Distraction Of Immigration Riots In The Streets

Jose Ramirez crossed the Texas border after a long but not unpleasant journey from El Salvador.  He had been encouraged by President Biden to come on up. America was a compassionate, generous, welcoming country whose white majority could use a bit more color. 

And so it was that Ramirez who had long wanted to come to El Norte but had neither the credentials or the resume to successfully pass muster at Eagle Pass customs, finally went. As an ex-death squad member of the Salvadoran Army during his country's long civil war, an MS-13 gang member after being decommissioned, and a convicted felon for assault and robbery, he knew he had little chance of entry into America. 

 

With the coming of the Biden Administration, all that changed.  Little if any vetting was being done at the border, he and thousands of others were being lumped in a catch-all asylee category, and the border was for all intents and purposes open. 

His relatives who made the journey before him were welcomed with open arms, feted and honored as refugees from racial, civic, and ethnic oppression.  No one cared where they went after the jamboree of welcome, and so they headed to Los Angeles to join Cadre 106 of Mara Salvatrucha, the most important and influential branch of the organization.  Cadre 106 had been responsible for the almost unchecked flow of marijuana and cocaine, and was now making hundreds of millions more through the smuggling of Fentanyl. 

Cadre 106 was well-armed and funded, growing every year, and extending its influence well past the municipal boundaries and into Arizona, Colorado and Utah.  'We are like ISIS', said El Jefe, Miguel Sanchez Obrador, and indeed they were, expanding rapidly and taking no prisoners.  With the open border policy of President Biden, they had more eager members than they needed, a flow of ambitious new blood. 

 

So with little hesitation, Jose left for El Norte and, thanks to his generous financing of those organizing the exodus, lodged well, ate well, and slept well.  Once across the border, he rented a car and drove to LA where he met El Jefe himself. 

All was beautiful in those waning Biden years.  To consolidate and preserve his legacy, the President pulled back the even desultory border controls he had in place, and the migration to America reached Red Sea proportions. 

All this came to an abrupt halt once Donald Trump was elected and immediately began to make good on his promise to close the border.  The surge trickled to a stream, and Jose and his MS-13 colleagues had to revise their trafficking and drug importation policies.  Given the demand for illicit drugs in America, this would not be difficult. 

Now, Trump was no patsy and created an immigration control agency with unlimited powers.  Under Presidential order, this ICE personnel fanned out through America and detained and arrested illegal immigrants from California to Maine.  Conservative Americans cheered.  Finally with illegal immigration closed down, wages for American citizens would rise, crime would decrease, and the ethos of a peaceful, entrepreneurial country would return.

With the millions of new illegals in the country thanks to Biden, and the millions more already here, ICE had easy pickin's, and convoys of armored, well-armed vehicles were seen in every major city, and SWAT team-like personnel broke their way into sweat shops, restaurant kitchens, and construction sites pulling out Salvadorans and Hondurans, handcuffing them, and throwing them in the back of waiting busses. 

 

Trump heralded the victory.  No more would America stand for the illegal invasion of thieves, murderers, dope dealers, and rapists; if some well-meaning immigrants got caught in the net, so be it, for this was the price of resettling old scores. Taking a page from the new Salvadoran President Bukele for whom restoring order, peace, and civility was worth necessary, forced internment, the Trump Administration's juggernaut continued to unremittingly clean house. 

Now, American progressives were not about to put up with what they saw as Nazi-like pogroms and the demise of their vision of a diverse, inclusive, multi-cultural, non-white society; and so along with Latino activists organized a program of civil disruption and disobedience.  They had already caused havoc with the Administration's support of Israel - campuses were more in flames than they had been since the Sixties - and organized pro-Palestine protests, rallies, and demonstrations everywhere. 

The Administration answered in kind cutting off federal funding and international student visas, but the incendiary support for Hamas continued.  Progressive organizers were unconcerned - the more the Trump rejoinder, the better; for each lockdown created even more venomous hatred for Trump and his racist policies. 

So, the elision to anti-ICE deportations was smooth, and the streets were filled with operatives well-trained in the arts of civil unrest and violent protest.  Added to this were the resources of MS-13 whose vast treasury could fund thousands of such insurrectionist agitators. Before long, the streets of Los Angeles were filled with illegal Latinos daring ICE to come get them, waving Mexican and Honduran flags, and cheering every police car trashed and burned. 

If there was ever a show of exactly why America did not need these corrupting interlopers from south of the border, the demonstrations were it.  The irony of it was not lost on most Americans.  The protesters were in the country illegally and were demanding their right to stay thanks to legal protection, working the system, pretending that deportation was against civil, legal, and human rights and a dereliction of the protection of free speech while simply trying to deter or stop legitimate attempts to send then back where they came from. 

Jose loved the work, just enough violence to get the old blood stirring once again, satisfaction in seeing El Norte become Third World, and in the confusion and dispersal of border police an easier importation of Fentanyl and cocaine.  He was a happy man. America was all it was purported to be.  

Even before the riots he was making a good living, supplementing his drug income with human trafficking above and beyond the waves of illegal immigration.  He, thanks to his involvement and acumen in the barrio prostitution trade, tricked, trapped, and enslaved young Indian women from the Guatemalan hills, smuggled them into America, and forced them to work for him. 

The MS-13 dynasty was already challenging the black gangs of South Central Los Angeles, and its control of arms, drugs, women, and gambling was impressive.  It was as ruthless as the old Mafia or the Harlem gangs of Frank Lucas.

 

The riots were just what the doctor ordered - a distraction, a diversionary event, a perfect storm of civil disorder, ironic patriotism, and liberal idealist sentiments.  Business was never better.  Crime always benefits from unrest. 

Back in his barrio in San Miguel, his cousins and brothers-in-law looked forward to the remittances received from Jose, each month more generous.  If they couldn't head north to join him, his kind remembrances helped ease the wait until they could. 'We always knew that Jose would make it big', they said, reminiscing over a plate of rice and beans.