[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
IMMIGRATION AND THE ALIEN GANG EPIDEMIC: PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION,
BORDER SECURITY, AND CLAIMS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 13, 2005
__________
Serial No. 109-8
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/judiciary
______
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20-528 WASHINGTON : 2005
_____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., Wisconsin, Chairman
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
LAMAR SMITH, Texas RICK BOUCHER, Virginia
ELTON GALLEGLY, California JERROLD NADLER, New York
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia ROBERT C. SCOTT, Virginia
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina
DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California ZOE LOFGREN, California
WILLIAM L. JENKINS, Tennessee SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
CHRIS CANNON, Utah MAXINE WATERS, California
SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts
BOB INGLIS, South Carolina WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
MARK GREEN, Wisconsin ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
RIC KELLER, Florida ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
DARRELL ISSA, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona ADAM SMITH, Washington
MIKE PENCE, Indiana CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
STEVE KING, Iowa
TOM FEENEY, Florida
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
Philip G. Kiko, Chief of Staff-General Counsel
Perry H. Apelbaum, Minority Chief Counsel
------
Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims
JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana, Chairman
STEVE KING, Iowa SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
LAMAR SMITH, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California
ELTON GALLEGLY, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia MAXINE WATERS, California
DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
DARRELL ISSA, California
George Fishman, Chief Counsel
Art Arthur, Counsel
Luke Bellocchi, Full Committee Counsel
Cindy Blackston, Professional Staff
Nolan Rappaport, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
APRIL 13, 2005
OPENING STATEMENT
Page
The Honorable John N. Hostettler, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Indiana, and Chairman, Subcommittee on
Immigration, Border Security, and Claims....................... 1
The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Texas, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Immigration, Border Security, and Claims....................... 30
The Honorable Steve King, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Iowa.................................................. 33
The Honorable Maxine Waters, a Representative in Congress from
the State of California........................................ 39
The Honorable Daniel E. Lungren, a Representative in Congress
from the State of California................................... 41
WITNESSES
The Honorable Michael J. Garcia, Assistant Secretary for
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Department of
Homeland Security
Oral Testimony................................................. 3
Prepared Statement............................................. 5
Ms. Marsha L. Garst, Commonwealth's Attorney for Rockingham
County, Virginia
Oral Testimony................................................. 7
Prepared Statement............................................. 10
Ms. Heather Mac Donald, Senior Fellow, The Manhattan Institute
Oral Testimony................................................. 12
Prepared Statement............................................. 14
Ms. Mai Fernandez, Chief Operating Officer, Latin American Youth
Center
Oral Testimony................................................. 26
Prepared Statement............................................. 27
APPENDIX
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Texas............. 45
Letter from the Latin American Youth Center submitted by the
Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee................................... 46
Letter from the City of Houston submitted by the Honorable Sheila
Jackson Lee.................................................... 48
IMMIGRATION AND THE ALIEN GANG EPIDEMIC: PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS
----------
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, 2005
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Immigration,
Border Security, and Claims,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 4:22 p.m., in
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John N.
Hostettler (Chair of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Hostettler. The Subcommittee will come to order.
Today's Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and
Claims hearing will examine the alien gang epidemic that is
facing the United States. At this hearing we will examine the
role of aliens in gang crimes, investigate the immigration
factors that have shaped the gang epidemic facing this country,
and assess the use of the immigration laws in controlling alien
gang crime.
While there are an estimated 750,000 to 850,000 gang
members in the United States today, there are no firm estimates
on how many of those gang members are aliens and how many are
citizens. What is apparent, however, is that gang crime is a
growing problem. Over 631 gang-related homicides occurred in
2001, and by 2003, the number of gang killings had jumped to
819. In addition to homicide, gang members have been directly
linked to the narcotics trade, human trafficking, document
fraud, and violent assaults.
It is also apparent that aliens are members of many of the
most violent gangs in America. Reports have indicated that 60
percent of California's 18th Street Gang are illegal aliens.
This gang is reportedly ``involved in many types of criminal
activities, including auto theft, carjacking, drive-by
shootings, drug sales, arms trafficking, extortion, rape,
murder for hire, and murder.''
Similarly, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, has
reported that, ``The majority of MS-13 members are foreign
nationals in this country illegally.'' Newsweek has termed MS-
13, which has an estimated 20,000 members in the United States,
``the most dangerous gang in America.'' It has even been
alleged to be negotiating with al Qaeda to smuggle terrorists
into our country.
It is also apparent that aliens are key members of these
dangerous gangs. Lester Rivera Paz, the reputed leader of MS-
13's Honduran branch, was arrested in Texas in February after
escaping from his native country where he's wanted in
connection with a bus ambush. In the past 4 years, Paz has
reportedly been deported four times by Federal authorities.
In addition, it is apparent that even younger members of
our immigrant communities have become involved in gang
violence. For example, the April 6, 2005, Washington Post
reported on a ninth grader who was stabbed and beaten with
baseball bats outside Manassas Mall. A Prince William County
Police Department spokesman stated the victim has been
associated with the South Side Locos gang, and that the
suspects are believed to be members of the rival gang ``Sureno-
13.''
In response to the threat posed by alien gang members in
the United States, in March ICE launched `Operation Community
Shield,' an anti-gang initiative that is targeting members of
MS-13 in six cities nationwide. To date, ICE agents, working
with their Federal, State, and local counterparts, have
arrested more than 150 MS-13 gang members nationwide for
immigration violations.
Some critics have complained, however, that flaws in our
current immigration system hinder efforts to use the current
immigration laws to curtail the alien gang epidemic. For
example, some have pointed to so-called `sanctuary' laws that
prohibit State and local law enforcement officers from
contacting immigration authorities about illegal aliens, even
if they are previously deported criminals. Such laws require
the police to wait until those illegal aliens prey on the
public before they can act.
Some have asserted that temporary protected status, or TPS,
has also protected alien gang members who would have otherwise
been deportable. In January, the Government announced an 18-
month extension of TPS for El Salvador, the home country of
many MS-13 members currently in the United States. The
Subcommittee has been told that two of the three alleged MS-13
members charged in the 2002 rape of two deaf girls in
Massachusetts had applied for TPS prior to that attack, and
that one was actually granted that relief.
Finally, the lack of a ground of removal for gang
membership has been cited as a hurdle to using the immigration
laws to remove alien gang members from the United States. The
Subcommittee will assess whether additional resources or
authorities are necessary to make our immigration laws an
effective tool for the Government in responding to the gang
problem facing our country.
At this time the Chair will now recognize Members for an
opening statement, if they have any.
Mr. Hostettler. There being no opening statements, we will
now turn to an introduction of our witnesses before us.
Michael Garcia has served as the Assistant Secretary for
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since November 25,
2003. Just prior to his appointment, Mr. Garcia was Acting
Commissioner of the former Immigration and Naturalization
Service. He has also served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in
New York City working on high-profile terrorism cases. Mr.
Garcia is a graduate of the State University of New York at
Binghamton. He received his law degree from the Albany Law
School, where he was valedictorian.
Now I would to introduce Marsha Garst, but I yield to the
gentleman from Virginia to introduce his constituent,
Commonwealth's Attorney Marsha Garst.
Mr. Goodlatte. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for
holding this hearing on this very important issue and for
allowing me this privilege.
Marsha Garst is the Commonwealth's Attorney for the County
of Rockingham and the City of Harrisonburg, Virginia, and in
this position she has prosecuted hundreds of civil and criminal
cases with an emphasis on capital murder and narcotics. She has
previously worked in the private sector with a law firm in that
area, and she has been named the Business and Professional
Women's State Young Careerist of the Year in 2000 and
Professional Woman of the Year in 2002. She is a graduate of
the University of Virginia and George Mason University School
of Law, and I am very pleased to welcome a very capable and
able Commonwealth Attorney, who is very knowledgeable on this
subject.
Mr. Hostettler. I thank the gentleman. We welcome Ms.
Garst.
Heather Mac Donald is a John M. Olin Fellow at the
Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor to City Journal.
Her work at City Journal covers a range of topics including
homeland security, immigration, and policing. After clerking
for Judge Stephen Reinhart of the Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals, Ms. Mac Donald served as an attorney-advisor in the
General Counsel's Office of the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency. She is a frequent guest on Fox News, CNN, and other
television and radio programs. Ms. Mac Donald, a graduate of
Yale University, earned her master's degree in English from
Cambridge University and her law degree from Stanford Law
School.
Mai Fernandez is the Chief Operating Officer of the Latin
American Youth Center in Washington, D.C. She has also served
as a Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General in the
Office of Justice Programs. Before working for the Department
of Justice, she served as an Assistant District Attorney in
Manhattan, and as an aide to Congressmen Mickey Leland and Jim
Florio. Ms. Fernandez is a graduate of Dickinson College. She
received her law degree from American University and her
Master's Degree in Public Administration from Harvard
University.
Ladies and gentlemen, we appreciate your attendance here
today. Secretary Garcia, you will begin, and you will see that
there will be a 5-minute time period for your testimony. If you
could stay as close within that as possible, we would
appreciate it. Secretary Garcia.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL J. GARCIA, ASSISTANT
SECRETARY FOR IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Garcia. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Members
of the Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak
with you today about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's
response to alien gang activity in the United States. Mr.
Chairman, you have very vividly outlined the threat posed by
these gangs to our communities. I can assure you that ICE
brings to bear all of its law enforcement and investigative
powers to combat violent street gangs.
Ensuring public safety is among the most important homeland
security missions at ICE. Gang enforcement is a crucial part of
that mission. In the last decade, the United States has
experienced a dramatic increase in the number and size of
transnational street gangs such as Mara Salvatrucha, commonly
known as MS-13. These gangs have a significant, often a
majority, foreign-born membership and are frequently involved
in human and contraband smuggling, immigration violations, and
other crimes with a nexus to the border. Like any street gang,
these gangs also have a propensity toward violence. Their
members commit such crimes as robbery, extortion, assault,
rape, and murder.
In 2003, ICE conducted a comprehensive threat assessment on
violent street gang activity in the United States. The threat
assessment identified MS-13 as having a presence across the
nation, a significant foreign-born membership, and a history of
violence.
An example of this violence occurred just outside our
nation's Capital. In May 2004, in Alexandria, Virginia, members
of MS-13 viciously hacked at a rival gang member with machetes,
severing the victim's hands. The victims of gang crime are not
limited to rival gang members, however. Entire neighborhoods
and sometimes whole communities are held hostage by and
subjected to the violence of street gangs. Community members
are targeted by gangs for extortion, robberies, carjackings,
and home invasions. In drive-by shootings, the bullets fired by
street gangs do not discriminate between a rival gang member
and a child.
Based on this threat assessment, ICE initiated Operation
Community Shield in February 2005, with priority given to
targeting MS-13 members. The objective of Community Shield is
to gather intelligence, develop sources of information, and to
ultimately disrupt, dismantle, and prosecute violent street
gangs by applying the full range of authorities and
investigative tools available at ICE. In Community Shield, we
have designated priorities for apprehension based on whether a
gang member is a threat to national security, in a position of
leadership, or has a prior violent criminal history.
Since the beginning of Operation Community Shield, more
than 150 MS-13 gang members have been arrested for immigration
violations. Nine of those arrested have been identified as
leaders. More than half of those arrested have violent criminal
histories with arrests and convictions for crimes such as
robbery, assault, rape, and murder. In one set of arrests,
Miami ICE agents apprehended two MS-13 gang members wanted by
California authorities on murder charges. These two gang
members were also being sought by local authorities for their
suspected involvement in home invasions. Twenty-two of those
arrested have been criminally charged for illegal reentry after
deportation and are subject to sentences of up to 20 years in
prison, depending on their criminal history. Examples of
illegal reentry arrests include an MS-13 member from Long
Island who had convictions for burglary, auto theft,
harassment, and sexual abuse of a minor. Additionally, ICE
agents in Los Angeles arrested four MS-13 gang members that
illegally reentered the U.S., all with convictions for violent
crimes ranging from brandishing a firearm to witness tampering.
Finally, Newark agents apprehended an MS-13 gang member for
illegal reentry who had prior convictions for armed robbery and
grand theft.
ICE's efforts under Operation Community Shield are not
limited to immigration violations, and, again, we bring all our
authorities, including our financial and criminal investigative
authorities, to bear.
Through Operation Community Shield, ICE is taking
innovative steps to identify MS-13 gang members. The Law
Enforcement Support Center checks MS-13 gang member data
provided by State and local authorities against DHS and other
databases to locate gang members. In a cooperative effort, ICE
and the Bureau of Prisons identified 102 records of MS-13 gang
members in the Federal prison system database.
The LESC has also developed an innovative way to help
identify MS-13 gang members to first responders. When a State
or local police agency makes an inquiry to the LESC through the
National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, the LESC
sends certain inquiry responses to ICE headquarters for further
analysis. When a match is found, ICE notifies the inquiring law
enforcement agency of its findings. You can see what a safety
benefit that would have to any officer approaching a car on the
side of the road at night who would certainly want to know the
person in that vehicle is a suspected gang member.
On December 23, 2004, the Columbus, Ohio, Police Department
encountered Nelson Flores following a minor traffic accident
and contacted the LESC for information. ICE special agents at
the LESC and Columbus officers soon determined that Flores was
a previously deported felon linked to a drive-by shooting in
Nevada and was a local leader of MS-13. LESC agents immediately
lodged a detainer and notified Ohio ICE agents who responded
and arrested Flores for illegal reentry after deportation.
I will sum up now, Mr. Chairman, in keeping with your
instructions to keep to the 5-minute rule, but I will say that
in the final analysis, Operation Community Shield is a homeland
security initiative. Every criminal organization that can
exploit the border is viewed as a potential national security
threat. In recent months, there have been uncorroborated
reports in the media and from foreign governments of possible
links between al Qaeda and MS-13. While neither ICE nor any
other U.S. Government agency that I know of has credible
evidence to support these reports, the threat remains that any
criminal organization that exploits our borders for profit
could, for the right price, bring in terrorists or bring in
components of weapons of mass destruction.
Operation Community Shield marks just the beginning of
ICE's fight to defeat violent street gangs. I want to thank
you, Mr. Chairman, and the distinguished Members of this
Committee for the opportunity to speak about this gang
initiative before you today, and I look forward to answering
all of your questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Garcia follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Michael J. Garcia
MR. CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE, thank you for the
opportunity to speak with you today about U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement's (ICE) responses to alien gang activity in the United
States. ICE brings to bear all of its law enforcement and investigative
powers to combat violent street gangs.
Ensuring public safety is among the most important homeland
security missions of ICE. Gang enforcement is a crucial part of that
mission. In the last decade, the United States has experienced a
dramatic increase in the number and size of transnational street gangs
such as Mara Salvatrucha (commonly know as MS-13). These gangs have a
significant, often a majority, foreign-born membership and are
frequently involved in human and contraband smuggling, immigration
violations and other crimes with a nexus to the border. Like any street
gang, these gangs also have a propensity toward violence. Their members
commit such crimes as robbery, extortion, assault, rape and murder.
In 2003 ICE conducted a comprehensive threat assessment on violent
street gang activity in the United States. The threat assessment
identified the street gang MS-13 as having a presence across the
nation, a significant foreign-born membership and a history of
violence.
An example of this violence occurred just outside our nation's
Capital. In May 2004 in Alexandria, Virginia, members of MS-13
viciously hacked at a rival gang member with machetes, severing the
victim's hands. The victims of gang crime are not limited to rival gang
members. Entire neighborhoods and sometimes whole communities are held
hostage by and subjected to the violence of street gangs. Community
members are targeted by gangs for extortion, robberies, car-jackings
and home invasions. In the conduct of drive-by shootings, the bullets
fired by street gangs do not discriminate between a rival gang member
and a sleeping infant in the same house.
Based on this threat assessment, ICE initiated Operation Community
Shield on February 23, 2005, with priority given to targeting MS-13
members. The objective of Community Shield is to gather intelligence,
develop sources of information, and to ultimately disrupt, dismantle
and prosecute violent street gangs by applying the full range of
authorities and investigative tools available to ICE. In Community
Shield we have designated priorities for apprehension based on whether
a gang member is a threat to national security; in a position of
leadership; or has a prior violent criminal history.
Since the beginning of Operation Community Shield, more than 150
MS-13 gang members have been arrested for immigration violations. Nine
of those arrested have been identified as leaders. More than half of
those arrested have violent criminal histories with arrests and
convictions for crimes such as robbery, assault, rape and murder. In
one set of arrests, Miami ICE agents apprehended two MS-13 gang members
wanted by California authorities on murder charges. These two gang
members were also being sought by local authorities for their suspected
involvement in home invasions.
Twenty-two of those arrested have been criminally charged for
illegal reentry after deportation (8 USC 1326) and are subject to up to
20 years in Federal prison, depending on their criminal history.
Examples of illegal reentry arrests include an MS-13 member from Long
Island who has convictions for burglary, auto theft, harassment and
sexual abuse of a minor. Additionally, ICE agents in Los Angeles
arrested four MS-13 gang members that illegally reentered the U.S., all
with convictions for violent crimes ranging from brandishing a firearm
to witness tampering. Finally, Newark ICE agents apprehended an MS-13
gang member for illegal reentry who has prior convictions for armed
robbery and grand theft.
ICE's investigative efforts under Operation Community Shield are
not limited to immigration violations. We have the combined authorities
for enforcing both customs and immigration laws, which makes our
approach to fighting organized criminal activity and gang violence
unique, and more effective. By combining immigration enforcement
authorities with expertise in financial investigations, we have an
additional tool to hit these criminal gangs where it hurts--by going
after their money. One example of how these combined authorities can be
so effective is in an investigation of a street gang known to transport
large quantities of narcotics from Mexico into the United States. This
investigation involves pursuing money laundering charges, drug
smuggling charges, the use of electronic surveillance and identifying
and targeting illicit proceeds for forfeiture.
Through Operation Community Shield, ICE is taking other innovative
steps to identify MS-13 gang members and disrupt its organizations. The
ICE Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC) has checked MS-13 gang member
data provided by our state and local law enforcement partners against
DHS and other databases to identify and locate gang members. In a
cooperative effort, ICE and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons (BOP) have
identified 102 records of MS-13 gang members in the federal prison
system database. Through the cross-check, ICE and the BOP hope to
identify MS-13 gang members who may be directing criminal activity from
behind bars and prioritize jailed gang members for deportation upon
completion of their sentence.
The LESC has also developed an innovative way to help identify MS-
13 gang members to first responders. When a State or local police
agency makes an inquiry to the LESC through the National Law
Enforcement Telecommunications System (NLETS), the LESC forwards
inquiry responses that meet a certain criteria to ICE Headquarters for
further analysis and comparison with data ICE has on MS-13 gang
members. When a match is found, ICE notifies the inquiring law
enforcement agency of its findings and coordinates enforcement action
to be taken. The goal is to prosecute if possible and ultimately deport
these alien gang members from the United States.
On December 23, 2004, the Columbus, Ohio Police Department
encountered Nelson Flores following a minor traffic accident and
contacted the LESC for information. ICE Special Agents at the LESC and
Columbus officers soon determined that Flores was a previously deported
felon linked to a drive-by shooting in Nevada and was a local leader of
MS-13. LESC agents immediately lodged a detainer and notified Ohio ICE
agents who responded and arrested Flores for illegal reentry after
deportation.
ICE maintains a close working relationship with Mexico, Honduras,
El Salvador and Guatemala in the exchange of intelligence pertaining to
MS-13 and other gang activity. ICE established a working relationship
with Honduran Law Enforcement Intelligence Units regarding the arrest
of Lester RIVERA-Paz in South Texas. RIVERA-Paz, the alleged national
leader of the Honduran MS-13 organization, was an international
fugitive, wanted by Honduran authorities for his involvement in the
massacre of 28 bus passengers in December of 2004 in San Pedro Sula,
Honduras. RIVERA-Paz was apprehended by Customs and Border Protection
Border Patrol agents and placed into ICE custody pending prosecution
for illegal reentry after deportation. ICE Intelligence secured copies
of the Honduran arrest warrant, as well as photos and fingerprints of
RIVERA-Paz to confirm his identity and fugitive status.
At ICE, we recognize that no single law enforcement agency can win
the fight against transnational street gangs. ICE is working closely
with a number of agencies and organizations under Operation Community
Shield. Such cooperation is critical to the success of this initiative.
ICE's Operation Community Shield partners include other agencies within
the Department of Homeland Security; the Department of Justice;
Department of State; the governments of El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico
and Guatemala; and state and local law enforcement agencies throughout
the United States. ICE has a long history of working with our partners
in law enforcement to leverage our enforcement abilities. Operation
Community Shield is no exception.
In the final analysis, Operation Community Shield is a homeland
security initiative. Every criminal organization that can exploit the
border is viewed as a potential national security threat. In recent
months, there have been uncorroborated reports in the media and from
foreign governments of possible links between Al-Qaeda and MS-13.
Neither ICE nor any other U.S. Government agency has credible evidence
to support these reports.
This operation is just the beginning in our fight to defeat violent
street gangs. Operation Community Shield is an important public safety
initiative for the Department of Homeland Security that targets the
proliferation of gang violence throughout the country. By bringing the
full range of ICE's immigration and customs authorities in the fight
against violent street gangs, we can take hundreds of gang members off
the streets and have a significant impact on community safety.
I want to thank the distinguished members of this Committee for the
opportunity to speak before you today. I look forward to answering any
questions you may have.
Mr. Hostettler. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Ms. Garst.
TESTIMONY OF MARSHA L. GARST, COMMONWEALTH'S ATTORNEY FOR
ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, VIRGINIA
Ms. Garst. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and honored
Members of the House Judiciary----
Mr. Hostettler. Could you push the button there on the box
there?
Ms. Garst. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and honored
Members of the House Judiciary Committee. It's a pleasure to be
here in the springtime. What a lovely day. As the Congressman
introduced me, I'm Marsha Garst from Rockingham County, City of
Harrisonburg, and I am serving as Commonwealth's Attorney.
I have been a lifelong resident of Rockingham County and
the City of Harrisonburg, as five generations of my family
before me. So it's with a sense of urgency that I address you
today as I raise my own family in the valley to let you know
that with the alien gang problem, our way of life could be
lost.
As was the case with my family, many immigrants came to the
valley for good jobs, an abundance of good agricultural
opportunities. We have a burgeoning poultry industry and
agricultural economy. Currently, Harrisonburg is second in the
State for English as a Second Language program. We have over 56
different countries of origin in our school system and 38
different languages spoken. Right now, Spanish is the second,
of course, primary language in our area, with 72 percent of our
program being Spanish-speaking. Many of these immigrants have
contributed to the positive growth of this community, but I'm
here to address the minority, which is the alien gang group.
When I began prosecution in 1994, there was a new drug on
the street called methamphetamine, and there was not one
organized gang in our area. We only had 160 students in our ESL
program. Now we have over 1,422. We heard of a gang called MS-
13 first in 1999 when we had two members apprehended who had
fled from Fairfax County, who were staying with family members
here in Harrisonburg, regarding a malicious wounding charge
they had fled.
Our next contact then came most recently in August of 2003
regarding a woman by the name of Brenda Paz, whom many of you
are familiar with. Fairfax investigators advised us that she
had been living in our community with family members, and she
was a point of contact for local MS-13 gang members. She later
cooperated, of course, against MS-13 gang members, rejoined the
gang, and was murdered, and, of course, as you all know, she
was pregnant as well.
We also had another fatality related to gang opportunities,
which was a young woman who was contacted and involved with MS-
13. She was involved with stealing vehicles in Northern
Virginia and killed in the process of stealing vehicles with
MS-13. Her sister, who was only 14 at the time, was later
arrested in our local high school system for vandalism and gang
participation due to this MS-13 alliance.
I would like to introduce from the City of Harrisonburg,
County of Rockingham Gang Task Force, Sergeant Chris Rush, if
he would stand a moment. He has provided almost all the facts
and has been our local expert in this area. He was instrumental
in providing this data. We have ten active gangs currently with
100 documented, meaning certified, members that we're aware of.
Our most powerful gang is Sureno-13. There's at least 75
percent illegal aliens that we approximate in that group, about
40 active members. They have already been tied to and
prosecuted for malicious woundings, firearms violations,
robberies, abductions, assaults, breaking and enterings,
larcenies, and vandalisms.
One case of note was a 15-year-old young lady who was a
sister of a Sureno-13 member who was stabbed by a rival gang
member, MS-13. She came to school with stab wounds. A guidance
counselor saw this. Her family would not cooperate with the
prosecution due to, one, illegal status and gang ties.
Another case of note was just recently when we had an
abduction and robbery where Sureno-13 members went into the
home of a CRIPS member, held all the residents at gunpoint, and
robbed them. Several illegal aliens participated in this, and
they were not prosecuted due to the lack of cooperation of the
victims. The case had to be dismissed because the young man who
was the subject of the attack said that he was afraid to
prosecute.
Our next most powerful gang is MS-13. There's about 50
percent of the members that we can corroborate to be illegal
aliens. The rest are here with political asylum from El
Salvador. And this doesn't include all the MS-13 members who
come down from Northern Virginia to help participate in these
activities. We've already arrested them for malicious wounding,
firearms violations, larcenies, vandalisms and taggings. One
MS-13 member most recently was hit with a broken bottle and
injured pretty badly in February 2005. He went and got a friend
who was tied with MS-13, and he and another friend went back
and discharged several rounds of ammunition into the crowd, and
many people were frightened. Luckily, we didn't have a
fatality.
You will find some attached samples of gang taggings. I
hope that you have these photographs included in your packet.
The first depicts at a local housing project, Harris Gardens, a
SUR 13 member executing another rival gang member. Then you see
someone proud enough to put their SUR 13 ties and very
prominent markings on their back. The most common hand marking
of SUR 13 is there, as well as large taggings in a very
prominent place showing SUR 13 in the main area of our town,
and then taggings for the MS-13 turf.
As I sum this up, I want you to know that local teachers in
our second grade have told us that MS-13 and SUR 13 are already
recruiting our children. There's a photograph below, gentlemen
and ladies, that I'd like you to look at, if you have that,
which shows our middle school traveling here to the nation's
Capital. You will see two flashing gang signs: the one in the
front, CRIPS; the back, with the sign of the Bloods.
There was a significant problem with illegal aliens making
up gangs in the Shenandoah Valley. In the past month, ICE has
worked very close. We're very lucky to have now a local office.
We have ten gang members we identified. Out of these ten, two
have been deported and have already reentered the United
States. Three are awaiting criminal charges, and upon
conviction will be deported.
There is a nexus about to occur that is very important. In
Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, 40 percent of the
methamphetamine that has been seized in the entire State of
Virginia has come from our locality. What we have seen in
Shenandoah County, just to the north of us where Ms. Paz was
killed, that gang ties are already showing gangs to be actively
moving to methamphetamine. We are yet to see that actively in
Harrisonburg, but when they realize that they can use
methamphetamine for the benefit of the gang, then we're in
trouble because it will go from just individual gain to the
gain of the gang. Once they decide to do that, then we're going
to have a crisis.
I thank you so much for your time this afternoon, and I
thank you for your attention to this very important problem.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Garst follows:]
Prepared Statement of Marsha Garst
Good afternoon honored members of the House of Representatives
Judiciary Committee and guests. It is a pleasure to be back in our
Nation's Capital in the springtime. My name is Marsha Garst and I am
the Commonwealth's Attorney of Rockingham County and the City of
Harrisonburg. Except for my time at the University of Virginia and here
in Washington, D.C., I have also been a lifelong resident of Rockingham
County and the City of Harrisonburg. Five (5) generations of my family
have made their home in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley and as I now
raise my own family there, it is with a great sense of urgency that I
ask you to address the Alien Gang crime problem in the Valley of
Virginia before our way of life is lost forever.
As was the case with my family, many immigrants have migrated to
the Shenandoah Valley for the abundance of jobs and the quality of
living. Most recently, many immigrants have come to Rockingham County
and the City of Harrisonburg to seek employment in our burgeoning
poultry industry and agricultural economy. Currently, the City of
Harrisonburg is second in the state for English as a Second Language
(ESL) education and has over fifty-six (56) different countries of
origin and thirty-eight (38) different spoken languages in our public
school system. Spanish as the primary language makes up seventy-two
(72) percent of the ESL program attendees. Most immigrants to the
community have contributed to the positive growth and well being of our
town. However, I am here to address the dangerous minority--that is
alien gang members that have come to prey on other immigrants and
citizens.
When I began prosecution as in 1994, organized gangs were unheard
of and new drug--methamphetamine was making its way to our streets. In
1994, we had 160 students in the ESL program in the City of
Harrisonburg. In 2004, we had 1,422 students in the ESL program. We
first heard of a gang called MS-13 in 1999 when we apprehended two (2)
members of the gang wanted on malicious wounding charges who were
staying with family members in Harrisonburg after fleeing Fairfax
County.
Our next contact with MS-13 came in August of 2003. Virginia State
Police members and Fairfax County Investigators, advised us that a
woman by the name of Brenda Paz had been living in Harrisonburg,
Virginia, with family members. Ms. Paz served as a point of contact for
MS-13 gang members. As many of you know, she later cooperated against
other MS-13 gang members and was found brutally murdered in the
adjoining county of Shenandoah. Ms. Paz was also pregnant.
Later in 2003, another young woman from Harrisonburg, Virginia died
due to her gang contacts when her boyfriend and she were stealing cars
in Northern Virginia for MS-13 and died in a car crash. This young
woman's surviving sister, who was only 14 years of age at the time, was
charged after her sister's death with vandalism and gang participation
due to her alliance with MS-13.
Currently, the City of Harrisonburg and County of Rockingham has a
Gang Task Force. This task force has a coordinator with who I have
worked for a decade, Sgt. Chris Rush--I would like to introduce him at
the time--he was instrumental in providing the following details: The
City of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County has ten (10) active gangs
with over one-hundred (100) documented members.
The Surenos 13 are currently the most powerful gang over forty (40)
members strong. This gang draws its ranks from Mexican citizens. They
are comprised of at least seventy-five (75) percent illegal aliens and
have been tied to malicious woundings, firearms violations, robberies,
abductions, assaults, breaking and enterings, larcenies, and vandalisms
in our community. One sad case of note was a fifteen (15) year old
sister of a Surenos 13 member was stabbed by a MS-13 member and
presented at school with stab wounds, but her family would not
cooperate with the prosecution of her attacker because of the families'
illegal status and gang ties. Another case of note is the 2004 case of
abduction and robbery wherein Sur 13 members went to the home of a
CRIPS member and held residents at gunpoint and robbed residents.
Several illegal aliens participated in this attack, but could not be
prosecuted due to the lack of cooperation of the victims. The case was
dismissed because the victim told his mother he was afraid of SUR 13
members and refused to testify. The abduction and robbery were
retaliation for a drug debt. We have also had numerous home invasions
of illegal alien homes and citizens by SUR 13. SUR 13 knows that
victims will not prosecute because of their illegal status and many
cases go unreported.
Our next powerful gang is MS-13 with twenty-five (25) documented
local resident members. Approximately fifty (50) percent of these
members are illegal aliens. The rest are here on political asylum from
El Salvador. This does not include the many MS-13 members that travel
down from Northern Virginia to participate in criminal activities. In
Harrisonburg and the County of Rockingham, we have had malicious
woundings, firearms violation, assault, larcenies, and vandalisms or
taggings. One recent case of note, in February 2005, a MS-13 member was
assaulted with a broken bottle. This MS-13 member went and got two (2)
friends, one with gang ties, and returned and discharged several
ammunitions into the area of the crowd where he was assaulted.
Below, please find examples of the gang markings. The first
Photograph depicts a tagging on the door of public housing complex--
Harris Gardens, in the City of Harrisonburg. It depicts a SUR 13 member
executing a local rival gang member. The second photograph depicts a
SUR 13 member so proud he would wear his markings in a permanent
tattoo.
The first photograph below depicts a common gang tattoo. The second
photograph depicts a large tagging by SUR 13.
The photographs below depict recent taggings on well known MS-13
Turf.
Finally, we have evidence from local teachers of the second grade
that gang recruiting for MS-13 and SUR 13 has already begun. The
photograph below depicts local school children on a field trip to our
Nation's Capitol flashing gang signs. This picture was copied from one
of our local yearbooks in the Harrisonburg area.
Illegal aliens makeup a significant portion of gang members in the
Shenandoah Valley. Within the past month, a list of ten (10) gang
members was given to our local ICE office. Out of these ten members,
two (2) had all ready been deported and have re-entered the United
States and three (3) are awaiting criminal charges and upon conviction
will be deported because of their illegal status. There are also other
documented cases in which our local police officers have encountered
gang members/associates who had been deported and re-entered and were
re-arrested.
A dangerous nexus is about to occur. Approximately forty (40)
percent of methamphetamine seized in the State of Virginia was seized
in Rockingham County and the City of Harrisonburg. Already Shenandoah
County has seen gang activity tied to methamphetamine. The City of
Harrisonburg and the County of Rockingham are currently seeing gang
members in possession of and distributing narcotics. However, it does
not appear at this time they are doing it for the benefit of the gang,
but for the benefit of their individual gain. Once gangs decide to use
the valley drug trade as a profit base, then we will truly have a
crisis.
Thank you for your attention to this very serious problem and thank
you for your time.
Mr. Hostettler. Thank you, Ms. Garst.
Ms. Mac Donald.
TESTIMONY OF HEATHER MAC DONALD, SENIOR FELLOW, THE MANHATTAN
INSTITUTE
Ms. Mac Donald. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a great honor
and privilege to be here today before your Subcommittee, which
is an absolute brain trust of information.
Does that affect us or are we having a little security
alert?
Mr. Hostettler. We will--no, no security alert.
Ms. Mac Donald. You never know in the capital.
Mr. Hostettler. We will have a vote in the House of
Representatives and so--I don't know if we have a series of
votes, but we will have a vote in the House, so we'll probably
have to recess for a short time.
Ms. Mac Donald. Okay.
Mr. Hostettler. Hopefully we will get through yours and Ms.
Fernandez's testimony in that time.
Ms. Mac Donald. So I should continue.
Mr. Hostettler. Yes, please continue.
Ms. Mac Donald. Okay. I've had the privilege of working
with your general counsel in the past, and I'm glad to finally
be here to see where all the knowledge is coming from.
My name again is Heather Mac Donald. I'm a fellow at the
Manhattan Institute. I've written extensively on immigration
issues and policing, with a special emphasis on Southern
California and New York City.
Gang crime is the one category of crime that is exploding
nationally. It's up 50 percent from 1999 to 2002, and it's
going to continue to rise so long as our immigration system
remains broken.
As Mr. Garcia told us, nobody knows for certain the
percentage of illegal aliens in gangs, thanks in part to
sanctuary laws that forbid local police from even inquiring
into a criminal's immigration status. But there's a few numbers
that I think are suggestive.
In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for
homicide target illegal aliens, and approximately two-thirds of
all felony outstanding warrants target illegal aliens. ICE says
Mara Salvatrucha is predominantly or majority illegal. Police
officers will tell you it's basically 100 percent illegal. He
mentioned the 18th Street Gang or you mentioned the 18th Street
Gang, which a California Department of Justice study put at
about 60 percent illegal. Again, cops will say otherwise.
Now, given such numbers, leveraging a criminal's illegal
status to have him deported would seem to be an essential
weapon against gang crime. But in cities and counties across
the country, police are prohibited from using the most
immediate and straightforward tool to get illegal criminals off
the streets: their illegal status.
Here's how it works: Let's say an officer in Hollywood,
California, sees a previously deported felon, a member of MS-
13, back at Hollywood and Vine hanging out. Now, the officer
recognizes him and knows that his mere presence in the country
following deportation is a Federal felony. But under the
prevailing understanding of Los Angeles' sanctuary law, known
as Special Order 40, that cop can't lay a finger on that felon
for his immigration felony. Instead, he has to wait and
laboriously build up probable cause for, let's say, a murder or
an armed assault. But as any prosecutor here knows, it's not
always certain that you're going to get that probable cause,
especially with gang crime, since witnesses are terrified of
retaliation. Using the felon's immigration status now to get
him off the street is the surest way of protecting the
community.
The damage done by sanctuary laws is clear. Let me just
give you a few examples.
In late 2002, four illegal Mexicans brutally abducted and
gang-raped a 42-year-old mother of two near a railroad in
Queens, New York. Three of these illegal rapists had been
arrested numerous times for assault, attempted robbery,
criminal trespass, illegal gun possession. But pursuant to New
York's sanctuary policy, the police had never notified the INS.
In Los Angeles, 5 months ago, Carlos Barrera, an illegal
Mexican, mugged three people, burglarized two apartments, and
attempted to rape a 5-year-old girl. He had been deported 4
years ago for crimes of violence but, of course, had reentered.
Since his reentry, he had been stopped twice for traffic
violations. But, again, the cops never notified ICE because of
L.A.'s sanctuary policy.
Now, L.A. is proposing to issue new guidelines, but it
merely shows how perverse our attitudes toward border
trespassing are. It would require a cop to go all the way up
through his chain of command, then up through ICE's chain of
command to get a Federal warrant to make an arrest. Your
average citizen street thug is not required--does not have the
right to a Federal warrant before being arrested, only illegal
aliens.
In conclusion, getting rid of sanctuary laws is only the
first step to being able to solve the illegal alien gang crime.
ICE has to come up with sufficient deportation resources and
detention space, and the Bush administration has to engage in
the radical step of actually enforcing the immigration laws,
including laws against hiring illegal aliens. As long as the
jobs magnet retains its force, we're not going to be able to
stop the flood of illegals that are bringing terrorists,
undoubtedly, and criminals in their wake.
Sanctuary laws are not pro-immigrant. They're anti-
immigrant by keeping violent criminals in the community where
they're preying predominantly on law-abiding immigrants.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Mac Donald follows:]
Prepared Statement of Heather Mac Donald
My name is Heather Mac Donald. I am a senior fellow at the
Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a think tank in New York City.
I have analyzed illegal immigration for City Journal and the Los
Angeles Times, among other publications. I have also written a book on
policing called Are Cops Racist? I appreciate the opportunity to
testify today on this important topic.
Sanctuary laws are a serious impediment to stemming gang violence
and other crime. Moreover, they are a perfect symbol of this country's
topsy-turvy stance towards illegal immigration.
Sanctuary laws, present in such cities as Los Angeles, New York,
Chicago, Austin, Houston, and San Francisco, generally forbid local
police officers from inquiring into a suspect's immigration status or
reporting it to federal authorities. Such laws place a higher priority
on protecting illegal aliens from deportation than on protecting legal
immigrants and citizens from assault, rape, arson, and other crimes.
Let's say a Los Angeles police officer sees a member of Mara
Salvatrucha hanging out at Hollywood and Vine. The gang member has
previously been deported for aggravated assault; his mere presence back
in the country following deportation is a federal felony. Under the
prevailing understanding of Los Angeles's sanctuary law (special order
40), if that officer merely inquires into the gangbanger's immigration
status, the officer will face departmental punishment.
To get the felon off the street, the cop has to wait until he has
probable cause to arrest the gangbanger for a non-immigration crime,
such as murder or robbery. It is by no means certain that that officer
will successfully build a non-immigrant case against the gangster,
however, since witnesses to gang crime often fear deadly retaliation if
they cooperate with the police. Meanwhile, the gangbanger is free to
prey on law-abiding members of his community, many of them immigrants
themselves.
This is an extraordinarily inefficient way to reduce crime. If an
officer has grounds for arresting a criminal now, it is perverse to ask
him to wait until some later date when maybe, if he is lucky, he will
have an additional ground for arrest.
Sanctuary laws violate everything we have learned about policing in
the 1990s. Police departments across the country discovered that
utilizing every law enforcement tool in their tool chest against
criminals yielded enormous gains. Getting criminals off the streets for
seemingly ``minor'' crimes such as turnstile jumping or graffiti saved
lives. Gang crime, which exploded 50% from 1999 to 2002, is too serious
a problem to ignore this lesson.
No one knows for certain the percentage of illegals in gangs,
thanks in large part to sanctuary laws themselves. But various
estimates exist:
--A confidential California Department of Justice study reported in
1995 that 60 percent of the 20,000-strong 18th Street Gang in southern
California is illegal; police officers say the proportion is actually
much greater. The bloody gang collaborates with the Mexican Mafia, the
dominant force in California prisons, on complex drug-distribution
schemes, extortion, and drive-by assassinations. It commits an assault
or robbery every day in L.A. County. The gang has grown dramatically
over the last two decades by recruiting recently arrived youngsters,
most of them illegal, from Central America and Mexico.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement conservatively
puts the number of illegals in Mara Salvatrucha as a
``majority;'' police officers, by contrast, assert that the
gang is overwhelmingly illegal.
Law enforcement officials estimate that 20% of gang
members in San Diego County are illegal, according to the
Union-Tribune.
The L.A. County Sheriff reported in 2000 that 23% of
inmates in county jails were deportable, according to the New
York Times.
The leadership of the Columbia Lil' Cycos gang, which
uses murder and racketeering to control the drug market around
Los Angeles's MacArthur Park, was about 60 percent illegal in
2002. Francisco Martinez, a Mexican Mafia member and an illegal
alien, controlled the gang from prison, while serving time for
felonious reentry following deportation.
In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding
warrants for homicide in the first half of 2004 (which totaled
1,200 to 1,500) targeted illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of
all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) were for illegal aliens.
The Los Angeles Police Department arrests about 2500
criminally-convicted deportees annually, reports the Los
Angeles Times.
Though the numbers of illegal gang members remain elusive, the
evidence for the destructive effects of sanctuary laws is
incontrovertible. In 2002, for example, four illegal Mexicans,
accompanied by one legal immigrant, abducted and brutally raped a 42-
year-old mother of two near some railroad tracks in Queens, New York.
The New York Police Department had already arrested three of the
illegal aliens numerous times for such crimes as assault, attempted
robbery, criminal trespass, illegal gun possession, and drug offenses.
But pursuant to New York's sanctuary policy, the department had never
notified the INS.
Five months ago, Carlos Barrera, an illegal Mexican in Hollywood,
Ca., mugged three people, burglarized two apartments, and tried to rape
a five-year-old girl. Barrera had been deported four years ago after
serving time for robbery, drugs, and burglary. Since his reentry
following deportation, he had been stopped twice for traffic
violations. But thanks to special order 40, the police had never
mentioned him to the immigration authorities, reports the New York
Times.
In September, 2003, the Miami police arrested a Honduran visa
violator for seven vicious rapes. The previous year, Miami cops had had
the suspect in custody for lewd and lascivious molestation. Pursuant to
Miami's sanctuary law, however, the police had never checked his
immigration status. Had they done so, they would have discovered his
deportable status, and could have forestalled the rapes.
Cousins Aneceto and Jaime Reyes committed murder and a car-jacking,
respectively, after returning to Los Angeles from Mexico following
deportation. The Los Angeles police had encountered them before these
most recent crimes, but had to wait for them to commit murder and a
car-jacking before they could lay a finger on them for their
immigration offenses, according to the New York Times.
The Los Angeles Police Department began revisiting special order 40
last month. Its proposed revision merely underlines how perverse our
attitudes towards illegal alien criminals remain.
Los Angeles's top brass propose to allow a Los Angeles officer who
suspects that a criminal has previously been deported to contact his
supervisor about the reentry felony. That supervisor would then contact
ICE. ICE officials would next go before a federal judge to get an
arrest warrant for the immigration felony. Then, with warrant in hand,
the Los Angeles cop may finally arrest the felonious gangbanger-if he
can still find him.
This burdensome procedure is preposterous. To arrest an American
citizen for a crime, arrest warrants are rarely required; about 95% of
arrests of citizens are warrantless. But in L.A., under the new rules,
illegal criminals will have due process rights that citizens can only
dream of: not just judicial review before they can be taken off the
streets, but federal judicial review-the gold standard of all
constitutional protections. Maybe home-grown criminals should renounce
their citizenship and reenter the country illegally. It would be a
constitutional windfall for them.
Other jurisdictions that are reconsidering their sanctuary laws are
also proceeding with unnecessary timidity. The Orange County, Ca.,
sheriff plans to train a few deputies to use immigration laws only for
special enforcement actions against sexual predators or gangs, reports
the Los Angeles Times. The Miami Police Department will join with ICE
only on high-level gang cases.
These minor tinkerings all put unwise limitations on a vital law
enforcement power. Local immigration enforcement power should not be
limited to the felony of reentry following deportation. Nor should only
a small subset of officers be authorized to use it. There are many
illegal alien criminals who have not yet reentered following
deportation, but who are just as dangerous to their communities. Every
officer should have the power to enforce any immigration violation
against a criminal suspect, not just immigration felonies.
Nothing demonstrates the necessity of this power better than ICE's
March enforcement action against Mara Salvatrucha. Following the March
round-up, ICE proudly displayed three of its trophy cases: the founding
member of MS-13 in Hollywood, Ca., who had already been convicted for
robbery and possession of a dangerous weapon; the leader of MS-13 in
Long Branch, NJ, who had a prior criminal history of aggravated arson,
weapons possession, grand larceny, and criminal possession of stolen
property; and the founder of Port Washington, NY's, MS gang, who had a
prior drug conviction.
ICE got all three of these leading gang bangers off the streets
through what it calls administrative immigration violations, not felony
immigration violations. Local officers in Hollywood, Long Branch, and
Port Washington, as elsewhere, should have the power to use any type of
immigration violation as well to get a thug (who may also prove to be a
terrorist) off the street.
Immigration enforcement against criminals should also not wait upon
a major federal-local gang initiative. The majority of opportunities to
get criminals off the streets come from enforcing misdemeanors and
quality of life offenses. While the police are waiting to make a major
federal case against an illegal criminal, they are far more likely to
have picked him up for a ``petty'' theft or an open-container offense.
Officers should be empowered at every arrest or lawful stop to check
someone's immigration status. If a suspect is committing an immigration
offense, the officer should be empowered to arrest him immediately for
that offense.
Jails and prisons should routinely check the immigration status of
their prisoners. Such an initiative should not be dependent on the
presence of an ICE officer stationed in a prison; there are simply not
enough federal agents available to cover the relevant facilities.
Moreover, ICE agents do not routinely visit local jails where
misdemeanor offenders are held, yet those offenders may be as dangerous
to the community as someone against whom a felony case has been made.
Someone convicted of stealing a jacket today may be shooting a rival
tomorrow. And many misdemeanor convicts in jails have been allowed to
plead down from more serious felonies.
The standard argument for sanctuary laws is that they encourage
illegal aliens to work with the police or seek government services.
This argument is based on myth, not evidence. No illegal alien advocate
has ever provided a shred of evidence that sanctuary laws actually
accomplish their alleged ends. Nor has anyone shown that illegal aliens
are even aware of sanctuary laws. The evidence for the destructive
effects of sanctuary laws is clear, however.
The idea that sanctuary laws are ``pro-immigrant'' is perhaps the
greatest myth of all. Keeping illegal criminals in the community
subjects all immigrants to the thrall of crime and impedes economic
growth in immigrant communities.
Obviously, the final prerequisite for ridding immigrant communities
of illegal thugs is enough ICE detention space and deportation
resources. But providing police officers with every lawful tool to
fight crime is a crucial first step to protecting immigrant lives and
should be the unanimous recommendation of the Subcommittee.
ATTACHMENT
Mr. Hostettler. Thank you, Ms. Mac Donald.
Ms. Fernandez.
TESTIMONY OF MAI FERNANDEZ, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, LATIN
AMERICAN YOUTH CENTER
Ms. Fernandez. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Members of
the Committee. It is a pleasure to be here before you today to
speak on the issues related to gang memberships and
immigration.
Before I go into the substance of my testimony, I would
like to tell you a bit about the Latin America Youth Center
where I work. The Latin America Youth Center is based in D.C.
in the Columbia Heights neighborhood just up the street on 14th
and Columbia Road. It is a community-based, multicultural,
multi-lingual youth and family development center. We provide
many educational programs and tutoring for youth who are in
school as well as GED and vocational training for those who
have dropped out. Additionally, we offer substance abuse
counseling for young people in need of these services and
housing for homeless youth.
We serve about 3,000 youth through our programs. I think
that it is safe to say that a majority of our youth are gang-
involved or have been gang-involved. However, I need to point
out that only a small number of our kids are involved in
criminal activity.
Let me explain. Many of the parents of our youth immigrated
to the United States to find safety and a better way of life.
Upon arriving in the U.S., many of these adults find themselves
in need of working two to three jobs to make ends meet. Keeping
the family clothed, fed, and housed becomes the priority.
Unfortunately, this means that children are not provided the
supervision they need.
The lack of supervision often leads to boredom and a sense
of insecurity which causes the children to join gangs. Joining
a gang gives a youth a group of friends to hang out with and a
sense of security they cannot elsewhere find in their lives.
These kids are not super-predators. They are kids looking for a
sense of belonging. Most of the youth who are in gangs are not
criminals. It would be inappropriate to punish all immigrant
youth who are in gangs by taking away their immigration status.
Having said this, I am a former prosecutor from Manhattan
and do believe that when a gang member gets involved in
criminal activity, there needs to be a decisive law enforcement
response. Two years back, Columbia Heights, D.C., where I work,
was plagued with a spree of gang-related murders. There was a
swift law enforcement response which investigated the cases and
apprehended the perpetrators. Several of these young people are
now serving life sentences. The law enforcement response sent a
clear message to other gang-involved youth: If you commit
crimes, you will be punished.
After the spree of homicides, both the community and the
police realized that they should not only respond to gang-
related criminal activity, but should also work together to
prevent it. As a result, the Gang Intervention Partnership, the
GIP, was created. The GIP brings together police, probation
officers, prosecutors, and community social service providers
to develop intervention strategies for youth who are at high
risk of committing crimes. What often occurs is that a
community member will find out that a youth is in some kind of
trouble. The members of the GIP come together to ensure that
the youth is supervised and that he or she is involved in
structured activities. If the youth faces real security
problems, arrangements have been made that the youth be placed
in a witness protection program. The outcome has been that
there have been no gang-related homicides in Columbia Heights
in the last 2 years.
I'd also like to make the point that a youth who has been
involved in a gang-related criminal activity can turn around
his or her life. At the Latin America Youth Center, we have
several programs that work with youth who have a criminal
record. We have reentry programs whereby probation officers
assign us newly released youth, and we help them find jobs,
educational opportunities, and counseling. In other instances,
the youth come to us freely looking for opportunities to change
their lives. Every year we graduate approximately 70 youth from
our programs who have advanced their education and who are
ready to find jobs.
Our community has been able to tailor an effective and
appropriate response to gang-related crime in our area. This
experience has brought me to believe that a Federal response to
the gang issue may be inappropriate, particularly an
immigration response. Although we still have a steady influx of
immigrants coming to our community, the majority of youth are
born in the United States. Consequently, an easier way of
deporting youth would not solve our particular gang problem.
Moreover, the character of gangs can change from
neighborhood to neighborhood, and it most definitely changes
from State to State. I know that the panel here has talked to
you about the atrocities of MS-13. Despite the MS-13's visible
presence in Virginia, it has a very small presence in D.C. And
I should add that the majority of our Latino youth are
Salvadorean. Different tactics need to be used to address the
gang problems in different jurisdictions. Federal solutions are
too wide-sweeping to address the unique problems of a
particular area.
Lastly, I'd like to point out that the gang situation in
this country has to be kept in perspective. Despite the media
attention received by the issue, serious youth crime has
fallen. The most recent crime survey from the FBI's Uniform
Crime reporting program that breaks down the age of people
arrested for serious offenses in 2003 showed that the number of
people under 18 arrested declined by 30 percent. Moreover,
between 1993 and 2003, youth homicide arrests declined 75
percent. Gang crime is serious, but the response needs to be
proportionate to the problem. Enacting legislation that would
imperil the immigration status of countless people but may have
little effect on decreasing crime is not a wise response to the
problem.
Thank you very much, and I am here to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Fernandez follows:]
Prepared Statement of Mai Fernandez
Good afternoon, Congressman Hostettler, Congresswoman Jackson Lee
and members of the Committee. It is a pleasure to be before you today
to speak on issues related to gang memberships and immigration.
Before I go into the substance of my testimony, I would like to
tell you a bit about the Latin American Youth Center (LAYC) where I
work. The LAYC is based here in DC in the Columbia Heights
neighborhood. It is a community-based, multi-cultural and multi-lingual
youth and family development center. We provide many educational
programs and tutoring for youth who are in school as well as GED and
vocational training for those who have dropped out. Additionally, we
offer substance abuse counseling for young people in need of those
services and housing for homeless youth.
We serve about 3,000 youth through our programs. I think that it is
safe to say that a majority are gang involved or have been gang
involved at some point in their life. However, only a small number of
our kids are involved in criminal activity.
Let me explain. Many of the parents of our youth immigrated to the
United States to find safety and a better way of life for their
children. Upon arriving in the U.S. many of these adults find
themselves needing to work 2 to 3 jobs just to make ends meet. Keeping
the family clothed, fed and housed becomes the priority. Unfortunately,
this means that children are not provided the supervision that they
need.
The lack of supervision often leads to boredom and a sense of
insecurity which cause the children to join gangs. Joining a gang gives
a youth a group of friends to hang out with, and a sense of security
which they cannot get elsewhere in their lives. These kids are not
super-predators--they are kids looking for a sense of belonging. Most
youth who are in gangs are not criminals. It would be inappropriate to
punish all immigrant youth who are in gangs by taking away their
Temporary Protection Status.
Having said this, I am a former prosecutor from Manhattan, and do
believe that when gang members get involved in criminal activity there
needs to be a decisive law enforcement response. Two years back,
Columbia Heights, D.C., where I work, was plagued with a spree of gang
related murders. There was a swift law enforcement response which
investigated the cases and apprehended the perpetrators. Several of
these young people are now serving life sentences. The law enforcement
response sent a clear message to other gang involved youth--if you
commit crimes you will be punished.
After the spree of homicides, both the community and the police
realized that they should not only respond to gang related criminal
activity, but should also work together to prevent it. As a result the
Gang Intervention Partnership--the GIP--was created. The GIP brings
together police, probation officers, prosecutors and community social
service providers to develop intervention strategies for youth who are
highly at risk of committing crimes. What often occurs is that a
community member will find out that a youth is in some kind of trouble.
The members of the GIP come together to ensure that the youth is
supervised and that he/she is involved in structured activities. If the
youth faces real security problems arrangements have been made to place
the youth in witness protection programs. The outcome has been that
there have been no gang-related homicides in Columbia Heights in the
last two years.
I'd also like to make the point that a youth who has been involved
in gang-related criminal activity can turn around his/her life. At the
Latin American Youth Center we have several programs that work with
youth who have a criminal record. We have re-entry programs where by
probation officers assign us newly released youth and we help them find
jobs, education opportunities and counseling. In other instances, the
youth come to us freely looking for opportunities to change their
lives. Every year we graduate approximately 70 youth from our programs
who have advanced their education and who are ready to find jobs.
Our community has been able to tailor an effective and appropriate
response to gang-related crime in our area. This experience has brought
me to believe that a federal response to the gang issue maybe
inappropriate--particularly an immigration response. Although, we still
have a steady influx of immigrants coming to our community, the
majority of our youth are born in the United States. Consequently, an
easier way of deporting youth would not solve our gang problem.
Moreover, the character of gangs can change from neighborhood to
neighborhood and it most definitely changes from state to state. I know
that many of you have heard about the atrocities committed by MS13
members. Despite MS13's visible presence in Virginia, it has a very
small presence in DC. Different tactics need to be used to address the
gang problems in different jurisdictions. Federal solutions are too
wide sweeping to address the unique problems of a particular area.
Lastly, I'd like to point out that the gang situation in this
country has to be kept in perspective. Despite the media attention
received by this issue, serious youth crime has fallen. The most recent
crime survey from the FBI's Uniform Crime reporting program that breaks
down the age of people arrested for serious offense in 2003 showed that
the number of people under 18 arrested declined by 30%. Moreover,
between 1993 and 2003, youth homicide arrests declined by 75%. Gang
crime is serious but the response needs to be proportionate to the
problem. Enacting legislation that would imperil the immigration status
of countless people but may have little effect in decreasing crime is
not a wise response to this problem.
Thank you for your time. I am available to answer questions at this
time.
Mr. Hostettler. Thank you, Ms. Fernandez.
The Subcommittee will now recess for approximately 30
minutes. We have two votes in the House, and I assume we will
be 30 to 35 minutes, and we appreciate your indulgence.
We are recessed.
[Recess.]
Mr. Hostettler. The Subcommittee will come to order. We
will now turn to questions from Members of the Subcommittee.
The Chair recognizes himself for 5 minutes.
Secretary Garcia, nationals of three countries that are
reportedly sources of large numbers of gang members--Nicaragua,
Honduras, and El Salvador--currently are eligible for temporary
protected status, or TPS, in the United States. This
Subcommittee has been told that two of three purported gang
members accused of raping two deaf girls in a Massachusetts
park in 2002 were Salvadorans who had applied for temporary
protected status. How many criminal gang members that ICE has
arrested in its anti-gang efforts had TPS?
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will use the
Operation Community Shield universe, so to speak, and that was
5,000 members, gang members in a database that we compiled for
Operation Community Shield. Of that number, the following
numbers of aliens had been granted temporary protected status:
for El Salvador, 291; for Honduras, 43; and for Nicaragua, one.
So somewhere in the neighborhood of 350.
Mr. Hostettler. Thank you. Have TPS grants to nationals of
those three countries made it more difficult for ICE to use the
immigration laws to remove alien gang members from the United
States? And if so, in what ways?
Mr. Garcia. If someone has been granted TPS, in order to
remove them from the United States, in effect to take away that
status, you have to show certain criminal convictions.
In the case of Operation Community Shield, ICE had arrested
three gang members who had TPS status. In spite of that status,
they are subject to removal. So it really depends on the
history, particularly the criminal history, of the particular
gang member.
Mr. Hostettler. Thank you.
Ms. Mac Donald, in your testimony, you state that,
``Sanctuary laws are a serious impediment to stemming gang
violence.'' In what ways do sanctuary laws impede law
enforcement's anti-gang efforts?
Ms. Mac Donald. Sanctuary laws impede local law
enforcement's anti-gang effort because they deprive cops of
often their only tool to get a gang member off the street. As I
said, it's often very difficult to build a typical criminal
case against a gang member because a witness fears that he's
going to get shot if he testifies against him.
We've learned in New York City that the best way to fight
crime is to use every single law on the books. Mayor Giuliani
brought crime down 70 percent by using things like turnstile-
jumping laws, the graffiti laws, and he found that there's a
great chain of being in criminal activity. Somebody who is
stealing a coat one day is shooting somebody the next day, or
somebody who's spraying graffiti one day is robbing somebody of
their wallet in Central Park the next day.
Somebody who is in the country illegally and is committing
crime, if you can leverage that immigration offense now to get
him off the streets, to my mind it's insane to require the
police department to laboriously build up a criminal case
against them because that may never happen. We all know that a
huge majority of crimes never get reported. Police officers in
L.A., in particular, chafe every single day under Special Order
40 because they know how it ties their hands to making
communities safe.
Mr. Hostettler. Thank you. In your testimony, you discuss
the need for resources to deal with this issue of gang
violence. Last year, in the National Intelligence Reform Act,
we included provisions that the President signed into law
calling for effectively tripling the number of ICE agents,
4,000 over 5 years; doubling the number of Border Patrol
agents, 10,000 more over the next 5 years; and tripling the
number of detention beds, 40,000 over the next 5 years.
Do you think these resources would be helpful in this fight
against gang violence?
Ms. Mac Donald. Chairman Hostettler, they're essential.
They're absolutely essential. I've talked to border agents,
especially on the Canadian border, who are picking up the
category of OTMs on a weekly basis, other than Mexicans,
Bangladeshis, Iranians. They have no idea who these guys are.
They have no place to put them, and it's catch-and-release
policy. They catch them and they release them. They say,
Please, Mr. Illegal Alien, show up in 6 months for your
deportation hearing.
We all know what happens. Eighty-five percent never show up
again, and people from terrorist-sponsoring countries have
about a 96-percent no-show rate.
So giving police or ICE greater resources to arrest people
for immigration crimes is meaningless if we simply release them
back into the country. And I cannot understand why the Bush
administration has not followed the will of Congress in that in
budgeting for the positions and the beds that Congress so
clearly passed in the intelligence reform bill.
Mr. Hostettler. Thank you.
At this time the Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from
Texas, the Ranking Member, for purposes of an opening statement
and questions.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chairman, first of all, thank you very
much for yielding me the time, and let me for the open record
indicate that I serve on two Committees dealing with this
question. And at the beginning of the hearing, I was in the
Homeland Security Committee with the new Secretary. And
inasmuch as that was our first time with him on some very
important management issues and policy issues, I ask and thank
the Committee for its indulgence, and thank you very much for
the opportunity for my opening statement.
Mr. Chairman, what I would like--I see that there's another
Member here. I'd like to give the opening statement and then
have you yield to the other Member for his questioning, and
then I'll come back to my questioning at that time. Thank you
very much.
It seems that we have been encountering the question of
immigrants, immigration, and a series of changes that have come
about over the last couple of weeks. The border States in the
Northern border and Texas in particular in the Southern border
are up in arms about new policies suggesting that passports
need to be utilized for what has been a comfortable
relationship in those States, partly in the United States in
terms of commerce and exchange. But we realize that it's
important for policies to be established so that we can in a
comprehensive manner secure our borders and secure the
homeland.
As we look at the different issues, I think that it is
important to establish priority for what is important.
Obviously, someone in the policy sector thought that as an
expansion of the 9/11 intelligence bill that possibly the use
of passports might be helpful. I, on the other hand, question
whether or not another focus could be utilized to ensure that
people who cross the border, at least those who are interested
or involved in commerce, might be able to use another document
and be more flexible.
This speaks in particular to where we are today on this
particular hearing. I wonder whether or not this is a crisis,
whether this is an emergency, whether or not this is not an
area that could be handled in a totally different way or over
an extended period of time to review what has become, I
understand, an increasing membership in gangs.
I recall some maybe 10, almost 15 years ago being a member
of the Houston City Council, and our own youngsters were
engaged in gang activity. It was raging all over the nation. We
began to use what I think Ms. Fernandez has mentioned--
intervention. And it's interesting that you mentioned, Ms.
Fernandez, that the participation in crime among adolescents
and youth has substantially gone down, as I understand your
testimony. So allow me just to share a few thoughts about this
particular hearing and what I think needs to be a balanced
approach.
The Department of Justice has mentioned that we have more
than 25,000 gangs in the United States. The most recent
national youth gang survey indicates that there are more than
750,000 gang members. Some of these gangs resemble organized
crime syndicates. They commit gun violence, gun trafficking,
drug trafficking, and other serious crimes.
Needless to say, I'm not diminishing the impact of gangs
and that they can be extremely dangerous. I certainly am
reminded of what I think was an urban gang, a citizen-based
gang, if you will, that plagued the streets of Baltimore and
caused the loss of life of a mother, a father, and five of her
children, only because she wanted to stand up to them and told
the police that they were trafficking drugs in the community.
I am not here to promote the Gang for a Day Program. But
the gang we hear most about at this hearing is, of course, the
MS-13. Composed mainly of Salvadoreans and other Central
Americans, this gang has an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 members
in the United States. MS-13 was established in Los Angeles in
the 1980's by Salvadoreans fleeing from a civil war. When they
came to Los Angeles, Mexican gangs preyed on them. The response
was to band together in a mara or posse, and it was to engage
in, if you will, conflict.
According to the ICE Bureau, the need to respond to the
proliferation of MS-13 gangs is becoming a public safety
priority. In January of 2005, ICE launched Operation Community
Shield. The goal of this operation is to dismantle the MS-13
organization by targeting its members' financial assets, et
cetera.
To do this, ICE will bring to bear all of its law
enforcement investigative powers, including criminal
prosecution, immigration authorities, financial investigation,
asset seizures. ICE will work with partners in the Federal law
enforcement community, including U.S. Attorney's Offices, the
FBI, DEA, ATF, and ICE will also work with foreign governments
to identify known gang members. ICE agents have arrested more
than 135 MS-13 gang members nationwide.
The gang problem is being addressed at the local level,
too. In 1997, the Fairfax Police Department made youth gang
crime a priority and established a Gang Investigation Unit. In
2003, funding from the U.S. Congress enabled the creation of a
Northern Virginia Gang Task Force, and that task force worked
very closely with ICE.
It is important to emphasize that Northern Virginia does
not limit its effort to law enforcement activities. The task
force also does public education, awareness presentations,
provides gang activity awareness training to school resource
officers and Fairfax County Public School personnel, and has
established diversion programs such as GREAT, Gang Resistance
Education and Training.
I'm pleased to also acknowledge that out of the siege of
gangs in Houston, we established a gang office and gang task
force.
I say that in conclusion to acknowledge this--and might I
say, Mr. Garcia, that the Secretary was very complementary of
ICE and the enforcement activities when I probed him about the
funding problems with ICE. He has offered that he looks forward
to raising the profile of ICE. And when we hear about what
they've done in this gang effort, I too applaud this.
My problem is that if we have this hearing to write more
legislation, to take young people who are associating with
gangs for the very reason that Ms. Fernandez has said, to be
part of something, to find a family base, to find comfort in a
foreign land, then I think we're doing the wrong thing.
Many of these individuals who are not citizens may, in
fact, however, have come here in very early life. That means
the same problem that we had when we passed the 1996
immigration reform bill where one strike, one criminal
incident, one juvenile incident caused individuals to be
prospectively deported to places where they had never lived,
this to me is the beginning of a wrong direction.
I believe if there is a consistent criminal history of some
gang member, then rightly so on a case-by-base basis a
determination of deportation can be made. But if this is a web
of--if you will, sort of a fishnet being thrown out to the
local gang on the street corner, and in comes 13-year-olds and
14-year-olds and 15-year-olds and 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds
who are associated by a membership or a desire to belong or
because they don't speak the language here in the United
States, then I think we make a grave mistake by yielding and
allowing those intervention efforts to be utilized and passing
massive immigration reform that includes--and I've been sort of
generous with my words--immigration laws. I don't consider it
reform--and start labeling and deporting masses of young people
in an unnecessary effort.
And so, Mr. Chairman, I welcome this hearing, but I hope
that we will have a hearing on the President's guest worker
program that I think needs more than tinkering with. I hope
we'll have a hearing on my earned access to legalization and
comprehensive reform which allows undocumented aliens in the
United States to be able to stand in line and access
legalization.
I hope we will complete the CASE Act, which part of the
legislation that's dealing with anti-smuggling, got into the
intelligence bill, but I believe that we need to put in place a
reward system that will allow more evidence to come in and more
information to come in to stop smuggling of individuals into
the United States. This, I think, speaks to real immigration
reform.
So I look forward to questioning the witnesses, and at the
time of my questioning, I will submit into the record or ask to
the submit into the record a letter from the city of Houston
Anti-Gang Task Force. I look forward to working with you, but
let's look at the crisis and the serious issues and let's try
to find common ground on issues like this.
I yield back.
Mr. Hostettler. I thank the gentlelady.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. King,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. King. I thank the Chair, and I thank the witnesses for
their testimony today.
As I listened to this testimony, there are a few things
that caused me to raise my eyebrows, and I thought I had a feel
and an understanding of some of the magnitude. But as we
debated the gang act earlier in full Committee and as I
listened to your testimony and Ms. Garst, as I recall that
testimony, say gangs are about 75 percent illegals in the
region that you would be familiar with, and as I see some of
your--I think your written testimony says that about 50 percent
may well be El Salvadoreans. And if I remember correctly, Ms.
Mac Donald, you may have stated that in the high 90th
percentile was illegal gang activity in the region that you're
familiar with. Would that still be correct? Did I get that
right?
Ms. Mac Donald. I think the number you're referring to is
95 percent of outstanding homicide warrants in Los Angeles.
Mr. King. I do recall that statement.
Ms. Mac Donald. Are illegal aliens, right. But according to
police, say, something like MS is overwhelmingly illegal, far
more than a mere majority.
Mr. King. So would that number be in the 90's, would you
expect?
Ms. Mac Donald. I would say, yes.
Mr. King. And I know that's probably impossible to nail
that down factually.
Ms. Mac Donald. You know, the sanctuary laws prevent us
from knowing that, and, of course, the denominator is unknown
either because we don't really know the number of gangs,
period. So it's all a speculation game.
Mr. King. Another piece that came out of the testimony is
that even if that number were 100 percent illegals involved in
gang activity--I don't expect that they're actively and
aggressively recruiting others, which would be American
citizens, children, our children who are being victimized by
this kind of gang activity, and I'd just ask you this: In an
ideal world, the world I thought I grew up in, we would have
enforced these laws a long time ago. And could you maybe just--
by the look on your face, maybe you speculated the same thing,
and I'd ask you to paint the picture of the way the world would
be if we had gone back 20 years and enforced our immigration
laws the way we all expected that we would.
Ms. Mac Donald. Well, I think you would have more respect
for the rule of law. You would not have the smuggling trade if
people in countries bordering us knew that when they came to
this country illegally, they were not entering a safe zone. You
would not have criminal syndicates able to get across the
border because the demand wouldn't be there.
The failure over decades to enforce laws on the books has
given rise to the fact that we now have, since 9/11, made no
progress in controlling illegal immigration. This is a scandal.
A terrorist cannot commit damage on our soil if he's not here.
But we have not been able to stop the half a million net that
come across the border every year. And that's because we have
decided not to enforce immigration laws for decades.
Republicans haven't enforced them; Democrats haven't enforced
them. And this has basically sent a message to the world that
if you can cross our border, you're home free.
Mr. King. Thank you, Ms. Mac Donald.
And, Ms. Garst, would you inform this Committee as to what
ICE would need to do to deport an alien gang member who has
been granted asylum?
Ms. Garst. The position that we're put in, sir, is
unenviable, and that often we don't know the status until we're
at a bond hearing on a criminal charge. Then we are blessed now
by Congressman Goodlatte to have local ICE agents. When I began
my prosecution career in 1994, we had no support in that
regard. We would call the local office here.
What we do is contact our local ICE agents. A number of
hearings are held. Our primary concern on our level, on a
small, rural, local level is can I hold these individuals
without bond on violent crimes. And I will tell you, unless we
can get a very fast answer regarding their immigration status,
often they're not held and they're bonded.
So we don't even get to the deportation process in many
cases.
Mr. King. I have another question that I'm very curious
about, and that is this culture of the illegal ethnic enclave
that tends to be a community. Has that culture of that illegal
ethnic enclave, has that been the environment that has produced
this gang violence? Ms. Mac Donald first.
Ms. Mac Donald. Yes, it's a very odd type of underclass
that we're generating. You have guys that are working as day
laborers during the day, and then they gang-bang at night. And
the police basically, you know, know where they're getting off
their pizza parlor job, and then they go join their gang
members and sometimes, as Ms. Jackson Lee suggests, it's simply
community activity, but often it's criminal activity.
And what you're seeing, as you yourself suggested, second
and third generation immigrants at an ever younger age are also
getting sucked up into the gang culture.
Mr. King. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Hostettler. The gentleman's time has expired.
The Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member for 5 minutes
for questions.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much.
Ms. Fernandez, why don't I start with you. You've heard the
exasperation, I think, of Ms. Mac Donald and Ms. Garst with
respect to the violence or the criminal activity. I'm opposed
to a broad brush to that--to those representations. I do
believe that we've got to find ways of enforcing immigration
laws or finding laws to enforce. At the same time, I believe
that there is danger to broad-brushing these groups known as
gangs and also danger in a broad-brush removal, for example, of
a TPS status rather than looking at the pattern of the
individual's activity or looking at it maybe on a case-by-case
determination.
Tell me again through your testimony how you would--how you
would help decipher, if you would, how you would part the
waters on who could be saved, what intervention does versus the
criminal activity that the two other witnesses are speaking of.
Ms. Fernandez. Thank you. Prior to coming here, I met with
the Gang Task Force, which is--the Metropolitan Police
Department has a Gang Task Force here. And I said, okay, truly,
what do you think has stopped the fact--the homicides in the
Columbia Heights area, because if any of you were watching the
Washington Post, the news 2 years back, we just had kid after
kid after kid killed. And they said we have 85 of the gang
heads in prison right now, five of which are serving life
sentences. That is a very decisive law enforcement response,
which I completely and totally agree with. Those kids have
committed horrible crimes, and they should be in prison.
However, we've got lots of young people, young adults that
are working for us, that are with us, that have been in one way
or another associated with a gang. And so if you lump murderers
and kids who want to be cool and say that they're a member of a
gang because it's cool when you're 16, 17 years old to say that
you're part of something that's bigger than yourself, then you
can't lump those two groups of people together. One's a
teenager and the other one's a criminal. And you have to have
different kinds of interventions for both. One's a very strict
law enforcement intervention. The other one is let's find
something for you to do, remain cool and remain feeling like
you're belonging to something, but yet let's not put you in a
category where we're going to throw you into a category of
criminals.
You know, I also need to take some issue with what Ms. Mac
Donald said, that, you know, we've got day laborers that are
then becoming gang members. That may be true in certain
specific instances, but if anybody has worked as a day laborer
where you're laying bricks every day, probably chances are that
in your evening job you don't have the energy to pick up and
then start doing gang activity. Most--many of our parents, many
of the people who we work with, work two to three jobs. They're
the people who clean, you know, offices at night. They're the
people who do work that other people in this country don't want
to do.
So I think that we've got to be very careful of lumping
everybody with a Latino surname into the category of a person
who's doing bad. So I think that we've got to be very careful
of not doing broad-brush type sweeps.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Garcia, if you would, we've made a
very strong point in separating responsibilities of the Federal
Government from State government, and one of those has been
immigration. That is a Federal responsibility. We forged the
Homeland Security Committee--excuse me, Homeland Security
Department in order to bring more focus on immigration and
other aspects of securing the homeland.
If we were to change the sanctuary laws and begin to engage
local law enforcement of every level, I would think that maybe
the good work that Ms. Fernandez discovered at the Washington
Metropolitan Police Department might not have been such good
work because, frankly, law enforcement locally, whether they're
constables or sheriffs, are overburdened. Is it the position of
the Justice Department to want to rid the system of the
sanctuary laws and begin to pierce into local jurisdictions for
them to begin to do Federal immigration work? First question.
The second question is, which plays into this: If we are to
blanket the war or the fight against gangs, which, as Ms.
Fernandez has said, would come in all shapes and sizes, some of
them will have a violent history and should be incarcerated.
You indicated a criminal history. Should we be blanketing
treatment toward them on the basis of overall violent acts? If
we are to do that--then this may not have the nexus that I'd
like it to have--what do we do about citizens who are taking up
arms on the Arizona border and setting themselves up
independently to be of assistance, albeit out of frustration?
If we lose control over one, we lose control over another.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Congresswoman. Your first question,
certainly immigration enforcement is a Federal responsibility.
There are statutes that States and local jurisdictions can take
advantage of to actually participate in the enforcement of
immigration law in a formal way, under 287(g) as the provision.
Florida has taken advantage of that statute, as has Alabama. So
there's a legal mechanism for actually State and local
officials to get training from the Department of Homeland
Security, from ICE, and become in essence deputized under our
supervision, again, with the appropriate training and go out
and enforce the----
Ms. Jackson Lee. And that's the choice of that particular
jurisdiction.
Mr. Garcia. Opt in, so to speak, that's correct, in certain
jurisdictions. I believe L.A. County recently has passed
legislation to do that as well.
So there are specific provisions for affirmative
enforcement by local jurisdictions.
In terms of the sanctuary laws and piercing the sanctuary
laws, I have some trouble understanding the concept. We enforce
the law. We have good working relationships with State and
local jurisdictions. There are natural partnerships there. Some
jurisdictions, mainly at a political level, have passed
statements and representations that they are sanctuaries in
terms of immigration law. As an overall matter I think it's a
very bad message, but I don't know what the specific impact
would be within the jurisdiction on our enforcement
capabilities. We would still go in. We would still have the
right to enforce the law, whatever law, immigration law in this
case, in those jurisdictions, and we do that.
And in most cases--and I come from New York--I know we have
a very good working relationship with the NYPD up there, and
there are many ways in which our interests intersect in
enforcement. So I'm not sure what it would mean in terms of
piercing sanctuary laws. You know, we look at each
jurisdiction, we exercise our authorities, and we always seek
to work with our partners.
In terms of the Minutemen, I believe you're speaking about
on the Arizona border, the Department of Homeland Security has
come out very strongly against any vigilantism. It's
distracting resources on the border for us to have to watch the
watcher, so to speak. Very fortunate and very grateful that
there have been no violent incidents on the border, but----
Ms. Jackson Lee. Grateful is the word.
Mr. Garcia. But the situation is being monitored very
carefully primarily by Customs and Border Protection with the
Border Patrol and other assets down at the border. And again,
as you point out, borne of frustration as well, but we're
keeping a careful eye on that.
Ms. Jackson Lee. On those sanctuary laws--just as a final
point, on these sanctuary laws, you are still doing the Federal
task of enforcing immigration laws. I think the point that I
was making is that we write legislation to eliminate or to
pierce an individual State's determination about how they want
to not be engaged in that. You know, we are pressing upon State
jurisdictions by any Federal law the responsibility of the
Federal Government. That's just my point.
Mr. Garcia. You're saying it's odd to have a Federal law
that a State law says we're not going to enforce or allow
anyone to enforce the law. So as again, I said, I think the
sanctuary laws are a very bad message. I think luckily we've
been able to forge relationships in most jurisdictions.
Mr. Hostettler. I thank the gentlelady.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr.
Goodlatte, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Goodlatte. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
Ms. Garst, you noted in your testimony that the number of
victims of gang violence, a number of them have been reluctant
to come forward because of their illegal status, and I wonder
if you might comment on that and tell us what you think the
United States could do to help make that easier for you to get
the cooperation of illegal aliens?
Ms. Garst. One of the heartbreaking situations that we face
in prosecution are very violent cases like the case of the
young girl whose brother was a Sureno-13 member and was stabbed
by MS-13. Not only did she not receive medical care because her
family would not take her to the hospital for fear of police
intervention, but it was only when a teacher and a guidance
counselor saw her openly having the wounds, that we even got to
hear about the case. They would not let her speak to the police
about the case in any detail. They would not permit testimony
and actually refused any cooperation whatsoever because not
just the legal status but also gang ties.
One of the issues that we discussed and Sergeant Rush and I
have discussed, we even had a homicide regarding many illegal
witnesses that would not come forward and the result was an
acquittal. And the sad situation in that case was certainly had
we been able to send a message that our local ICE agents have
told us that, look, if you're a victim of crime, we're not
targeting you for deportation.
There has to be a public awareness or education campaign
that we can get into the community and let people know, and
we've started doing on a smaller scale, as you're aware, at the
local poultry industry and also at schools, and as you
participated in our gang forum at our local high school, is to
educate the community that, yes, what Congresswoman Lee is
talking about, intervention through Boys and Girls Club is
there, and that also prosecution is there to help you when
you're a victim. When you're a victim of the home invasion when
a gang member comes in and holds you at gunpoint and takes your
jewelry or demands money, we will be there to help you. If
there is a way that ICE can help us, perhaps, I don't know,
through pamphlets in a bilingual way, to help people know that
the criminal justice system will be there for when they're
victims as well.
We have been seeing some limited success in cases, where
people of illegal status have come forward in a recent case, as
I had told you and Senator Warner, but it's been a great
struggle.
Mr. Goodlatte. Have you been able to work with the
immigration authorities? Have you talked to them about this
concern and have they offered any----
Ms. Garst. We have, and they have told us that their focus
is not on victims of crime, that they are not focusing on
illegal victims of crime. But I will be very earnest with you,
Congressman, there is a distrust somewhat of ICE certainly
within the community, so it will be very important for us to
continue to forge the relationship that we need to to help the
illegal alien. But what's important is the gang members know
this and they are picking people that are illegal to prey on
them, to go into their homes, because just in the case of the
stabbing and the home invasion that we spoke about regarding
them going into the home, the MS-13 members, they know these
people will, one, either not report, or two, not testify. So
they're home free.
Mr. Goodlatte. Let me ask you. In your testimony you've
mentioned--I found this very interesting--that gangs, rival
gangs were attempting to recruit children as young as second
graders. Why are gangs interested in people that young?
Ms. Garst. That is the greatest fear that we have in our
community. I'm working very closely, I'm on the Board of
Directors of the Boys and Girls Club, and a lot of this
information has been verified through teachers in the school
system. What happens is, as Ms. Fernandez spoke about, many of
these people are working two and three jobs, and the children
are relying on community members to help in the evenings and
other things or programs. What these gang members are doing in
our community--and I can only speak on our community, and again
I think it is different in other places--are coming in and
selecting children at an early age to be the banner carriers,
to tell other people about the gang, to pledge their loyalty
early.
They're actually even--we have instances of children within
elementary schools actually beating up other students who had
family members or themselves were showing other gang signs.
What they're doing is they're recruiting at an early age to set
the stage for other criminal activity, and it's not so much
that these children are criminal gang members yet, they're
being primed for that. They're being taught the gang system.
They're being taught the gang loyalties. And what we're seeing
locally is that they're sending these kids to do the
vandalisms, to do the break-ins because they know that the
juvenile system will not be as tough on these children, and
therefore the gang will be much better off because they
continue to perpetuate their profit motive.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you. I believe my time has expired.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Hostettler. Thank the gentleman.
The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from California,
Ms. Waters, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Waters. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and Members.
For this session of Congress I asked to serve on this Committee
because I come from Los Angeles, a city, a district and an area
where we have a growing number of immigrants. We have legal
immigrants and we have illegal immigrants. We have a very, very
complicated problem in the greater Los Angeles area, and in
some communities it's about to explode.
In the South Los Angeles area it is about to be a
confrontation between black and Mexican gangs. The Mexican
gangs are directed from inside the prisons. I've heard nobody
talk about the influence of the Mexican mafia or the prisons on
what is going on on the street. The territories that are being
fought over are being decided by the leaders inside the
prisons. And as many of the Mexican gangs advance into the
black neighborhoods to take over these territories, they are
simply killing each other. They just--now it's not even who are
you and where are you from? They're just walking up and
shooting dead in the head, Mexicans shooting blacks and blacks
shooting Mexicans. And I'm told, just as a few days ago, by
folks on the street that it is about to get really bad because
the black gangs, the Bloods and the CRIPS are about to combine
to face off with the Mexican gangs that are being directed from
inside the prisons.
So as I sit here and I listen to all of this, I just
can't--I just wonder if we really understand what is going on
and how bad it is. I mean it is, it is bad. And while we talk
about--we try to talk about it in ways that certainly will
protect people's rights, that will not simply just drag young
people into a broad net, as it is being referred to. We got to
do something, we got to do something.
I am very angry at the Administration for not protecting
the border. I'm very angry that the President of the United
States, who promised 2,000 more border guards, came up with 200
in the budget. I just think this business about whether or not
we're protecting the border cannot be played with politically.
You know, this Administration, or given that it is the
Administration, I wouldn't care whether it was a Democrat or
Republican administration, we're going to have to do something
to protect the border.
And let me tell you what's wrong with the gang members from
across the border who are causing problems. They're
apprehended, and if they're not apprehended if they commit a
crime, they're crossing back and forth across the border. They
leave and they come back because we don't have any protection
on the border.
I would hope that everybody would be frightened enough, I
mean absolutely frightened enough about what is going on and
how it is spiraling out of control, that some very decisive
action is taken which will include some harsh measures. Again,
you know, like I said earlier, you don't get any more liberal
than I am. I mean I'm a liberal with a big L, okay? And I
proudly say it. And my life has been about protecting people's
rights, about making sure that we have a criminal justice
system that just doesn't incarcerate innocent people. I don't
want innocent people incorporated, but we've got gang bangers,
black, white, and I want to tell you we had Jamaican gangs,
some of the worst. I mean drug dealing killers. I want them off
the street. I don't care where they come from. I don't care if
they're black, green, purple, white, I want them off the
street. I'm sick and tired or what is going on in Los Angeles
in my community. I'm sick and tired of law enforcement not
being able to make sense out of this. I'm sick and tired of
people who commit crimes over and over again, and the gangs
that are walking up shooting people in the head remaining on
the street.
Now, I guess we can pontificate and we can sit in these
Committees all day long, but unless Democrats and Republicans
alike are willing to join hands, say to this Administration, we
want the resources on the border, we want the border protected,
we want to go after the gang dealers. They call them shot
callers, the shot callers. Everybody knows who they are.
They're making the decisions. I want to know why don't we have
the information from the prisons to know who's sending their
orders out on the streets. I never hear that talked about. It's
time to get serious about this business. It is time to get very
serious about the business.
And that's all I have to say. I'm not trying to relate to
this flimflam. That's all I have to say.
Mr. Hostettler. Thank the gentlelady.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California for
5 minutes, Mr. Lungren.
Mr. Lungren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Many of us have been involved in this effort on trying to
deal with gangs for a long time, and Ms. Fernandez's suggestion
that it needs to be an all-encompassing approach is absolutely
true. I had a gang prevention task force where we brought
people from all disciplines together to try and figure out what
it was, and we came up, as many people have, with tougher
penalties, but we also came up with an effort to give young
people who would otherwise be attracted to gangs alternatives.
I mean I read these analyses of what gangs are all about and
from the National Alliance of Gang Investigators Association.
There seems to be a consistency or consensus on the fact that
in many cases, gangs take the place of other authority figures,
particularly family and adults. These kids sometimes get into
these gangs because they're looking for that which they won't
find anywhere else--discipline in a very strange way,
reinforcement in a very strange way. And we have been trying to
deal with that.
That is primarily a local and State responsibility. There's
no doubt about it. We have more cops on the local and State
level than we'll ever have on the Federal level.
But to exacerbate that problem with illegal alien gang
members is obviously to make it just far far worse, and it is a
question that I've often thought of. We spend so much time
setting up cops programs where we try and take credit for
getting police officers on the street; and then we don't fund
our border patrol, and we don't do internal enforcement.
So, Mr. Garcia, I would like to ask you if you could give
me an idea why we haven't enforced employer sanctions? I was
the Republican floor manager of the Simpson-Mazzoli bill in
1987. We thought that employer sanctions would be half of the
balance that they would allow us to have that hook into the
attraction, or the magnet, that draws most people here. Most
people don't come here for welfare benefits. They come here to
find a job--jobs that Americans have not or will not take.
So we thought employer sanctions would be a way of doing
it. And yet--I'm not trying to find fault with this
Administration because it's been Democrat and Republican
administrations, Democrat and Republican Congresses that
haven't done it, but I just wonder, from your standpoint as a
former prosecutor and your standpoint as the Assistant
Secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whether you
can give me some insight into that?
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Congressman. I'll try. Certainly we
do employer sanctions, and certainly it's a problem, and you're
absolutely right in the expression of your frustration and also
in the expression of it as the magnet or an attraction for
people coming into the United States. And certainly it's
somewhat a resource issue, as you point out. We have to use our
resources as effectively as possible, whether it's public
safety and gangs and predators or whether it's employer
sanctions. So what do we do? We go after a number of employers
on different levels, either large employers where we'll have
the greatest impact, and there are a number of cases recently
lumped under the Wal-Mart heading which actually involved Wal-
Mart in a civil settlement and contractors for Wal-Mart in a
criminal settlement with the Government, as a case leading to a
program that will hopefully get people to voluntarily comply
with the employment regulations.
We look at critical industries. There's been a number of
cases recently that have gotten attention by ICE under the
umbrella of Operation Tarmac. So you're looking at not only
airports and people with access badges who are employed by
those airports, but military facilities, defense contractors,
ports where people, illegal aliens without documentation are
again getting access to very sensitive facilities, and that has
become a priority. We're looking at abusive employers, people
who hold their illegal employees, illegal alien employees in
conditions that would be equivalent to bondage or slavery, so
we prioritize our efforts in that area.
So if you're looking at resources and the greatest effect
that you can get from the resources you have in any given
program, whether that's drug enforcement or employee sanctions
enforcement, that's where we have our resources. Under the
President's '06 budget--and I don't have the figure, I
apologize, offhand here--but there is a requested enhancement
before this Congress for increased funding for employer
sanction investigations, which I think is very important, and
hopefully by combining those additional resources as requested
with our prioritization and again some compliance programs, we
can have a greater impact than we have had.
Mr. Lungren. Thank you. Could you tell me how many arrests
were made last year on employer sanctions?
Mr. Garcia. I'm sorry. I don't know the number.
Mr. Lungren. Would you--could you give me an idea? Would it
be more than 1,000?
Mr. Garcia. Honestly, Congressman, I don't want to guess,
but I can certainly have our staff give your staff the number.
Mr. Lungren. Right. I mean I understand you are doing
things, but in terms of what we anticipated would be the case
when we passed the bill in 1987, we're not doing anything. I'm
not directing that at you. I'm directing that at all of us. I
happen to believe in the President's idea that we ought to have
a guest worker program because I think once we have a real
workable guest worker program, we, the United States determines
who comes here and under what circumstances and what jobs. Then
we would actually have no excuse for not enforcing employer
sanctions, and I think you'll get the kind of support for that
which is necessary.
Back in '87, we were talking about it being largely a
California problem or a Southwest problem. Illegal immigration
is a problem all over the United States. Gangs now you're
experiencing in the Shenandoah Valley. And I don't wish that on
anybody. But if you look at the numbers you have versus the
numbers we've been experiencing in other parts of the country
for some time, I hope that's not my way of saying ``you ain't
seen nothing yet.'' I hope it's my way of saying we've had some
real problems. Maybe we can get support from other parts of the
country for the problem that we've got, in terms of funding
that is necessary. It's a multi-faceted problem that needs a
multi-faceted approach. But part of that, it seems to me, is to
try and get rid of this exacerbating problem, which is illegal
alien gang members. We have enough problems with home-grown
gang members. We don't need to add to it, and that is a true
Federal responsibility.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Hostettler. I thank the gentleman.
The question period now over, I want to thank the members
of the panel for your input----
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Hostettler. Yes? I recognize the gentlelady from----
Ms. Jackson Lee. Would you please? Just if they can answer
this yes or no, I ask the Chairman to indulge me 1 minute, ask
unanimous consent for 1 minute.
Mr. Garcia, in the MS-13, have you in the course of--I'm
not sure if there's any firsthand knowledge, but any of the MS-
13 engage in any terrorist activity?
Mr. Garcia. Congresswoman, great question. We have seen
reporting, I think some Boston reporting linking MS-13 and al
Qaeda specifically. I have not seen that. I will tell you
though that any organized criminal enterprise that's exploiting
our border, as MS-13 is, to bring in contraband, to bring in
illegal aliens, certainly is a national security risk, profit-
driven, for the right amount of money could bring in
terrorists, could bring in components of weapons of mass
destruction. We have to accept that risk and address it. But I
have not seen a specific link between that gang or other gangs
and terrorist organizations.
Ms. Jackson Lee. And you're aware that the MS-13, in
addition to the hardened criminals that exist, recruits at the
level of 13-, 14-, 15-year-olds?
Mr. Garcia. I'm not an expert on their recruitment. I would
accept that representation from people who are familiar with
gangs, but I'm not familiar with what age limit they begin
targeting recruits.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Ms. Fernandez, just quickly, what would
you do with legislation----
Mr. Hostettler. If the gentlelady will yield, we're really
not going to be able to do a second round of questioning.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me have her do that in writing then.
Mr. Hostettler. Yes, please.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Would you please respond to potential
legislation that would add a deportation provision to anyone
who is a member of a gang, that if they were here, that their
membership would equate to an automatic deportation?
Mr. Hostettler. I want to thank the panel, the witnesses
for your presence here today and your very valuable
contribution to this discussion.
Ms. Jackson Lee. And I've got a submission. Ask----
Mr. Hostettler. Unanimous consent?
Ms. Jackson Lee. Yeah, ask unanimous consent to put in the
letter from the City of Houston dated April 14, Anti-Gang Task
Force.
Mr. Hostettler. Without objection.
Mr. Hostettler. The business before the Subcommittee being
complete, we are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 6:23 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Prepared Statement of Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee
The subject of this hearing is, ``Immigration and the Alien Gang
Epidemic: Problems and Solutions.'' According to the Department of
Justice, we currently have more than 25,000 gangs in the United States.
The most recent National Youth Gang Survey indicates that there are
more than 750,000 gang members. Some of these gangs resemble organized
crime syndicates. They commit gun violence, gun trafficking, drug
trafficking, and other serious crimes.
The gang we will hear the most about at this hearing is the Mara
Salvatrucha, or MS-13 organization. Composed mainly of Salvadorans and
other Central Americans, this gang has an estimated 8,000 to 10,000
members in the United States. MS-13 was established in Los Angeles in
the 1980s by Salvadorans fleeing from a civil war. When they came to
Los Angeles, Mexican gangs preyed on them. Their response was to band
together in a mara, or posse, composed of salvatruchas, which means
street-tough Salvadorans.
According to the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE), the need to respond to the proliferation of MS-13 gangs has
become a public safety priority. In January of 2005, ICE launched
Operation Community Shield. The goal of this operation is to dismantle
the MS-13 organization by targeting its members, financial assets, and
operations. To do this, ICE will bring to bear all of its law
enforcement and investigative powers, including criminal prosecutions,
immigration authorities, financial investigations, and asset seizures.
ICE will work with partners in the federal law enforcement
community, including U.S. Attorneys' offices; the FBI; the Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA); and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives (ATF). ICE also will work with foreign
governments to identify known gang members. ICE agents have arrested
more than 135 MS-13 gang members nationwide.
The gang problem is being addressed at the local level too. In
1997, the Fairfax police department made youth gang crime a priority
and established a gang investigations unit. In 2003, funding from the
U.S. Congress enabled the creation of the Northern Virginia Gang Task
Force. The Task Force works closely with the FBI, ATF, and ICE.
It is important to emphasize that Northern Virginia does not limit
its efforts to law enforcement activities. The Task Force also does
public education and awareness presentations; provides gang activity
awareness training to school resource officers and Fairfax County
public school personnel; and has established diversion programs such as
GREAT (Gang Resistance Education and Training) and youth mentoring
programs.
I am pleased to say that we have a good gang intervention program
in Houston too. In response to the rise in gang-related crime in the
early 1990's, Houston's mayor established an Anti-Gang Office and Gang
Task Force. The office's mission is to develop a comprehensive
mechanism to reduce gang-related violence and crime. To meet this goal,
the Anti-Gang Office and Gang Task Force has established prevention,
intervention, and suppression program partnerships with law
enforcement, criminal justice agencies, schools, youth service
providers, and the public. It coordinates citywide anti-gang efforts,
including the gathering and sharing of information on gang intervention
and prevention activities related to gang violence.
Our witness today is Mai Fernandez, the Chief Operating Officer of
the Latin American Youth Center (LAYC). The LAYC family of
organizations includes two youth centers in Washington, D.C. and one
about to open in Langley Park, Maryland; three public charter schools;
an Art & Media House; transitional housing; and two social
enterprises--all with a shared commitment to helping youth become
successful and happy young adults who have the skills they need to
succeed educationally, professionally, and personally. These services
assist youth in breaking the cycle of crime and violence in their
lives.
Thank you.
----------
LETTER FROM THE LATIN AMERICAN YOUTH CENTER SUBMITTTED BY THE HONORABLE
SHEILA JACKSON LEE
__________
LETTER FROM THE CITY OF HOUSTON SUBMITTED BY THE HONORABLE SHEILA
JACKSON LEE