When Debating the Border, Let’s Remember Gangs

“With well over one million gang members criminally operating in the United States…Terms like ‘occupation’ come to mind.”

As the political battle rages over the merits of constructing a physical barrier between United States and Mexico, much of the debate has centered on whether the current state of border security constitutes a national emergency. Seeking to bolster their respective positions, partisans on both sides posit an assortment of crime statistics. Dramatic, established, and alarming calculations, however, reveal an undeniable public safety danger that exists within our own boundaries.

An unrelenting battery of findings confirms that criminal street gangs represent an existential threat to the American way of life. The numbers are staggering. The following exemplary, non-exhaustive list proves the perilous pervasiveness of gang crime:

• 2009: A federal study determined that “Criminal gangs commit as much as 80 percent of crimes in many communities” and “Gang members are the primary retail distributors of most illicit drugs.”
• 2011: Federal calculations estimated that 1.4 million gang members from over 33,000 gangs “are responsible for an average of 48 percent of violent crime in most jurisdictions and up to 90 percent in several others.”
• 2015: Academic research reportedly discovered that actual youth gang membership may indeed more than triple federal government estimates.

Regional reports are equally disquieting. Indicative examples illustrate:

• 2016: A federal study concluded that 85% of human trafficking in San Diego County, California was gang controlled.
• 2018: Georgia Gang Investigators Association research concluded that there are over 71,000 gang members and associates in the Peach State.
• 2018: Law enforcement estimated that 100,000 gang members are active in the city of Chicago alone.

Incredibly, notwithstanding the enduring, ubiquitous, and metastasizing epidemic of gang crime, there remains no set of federal laws specifically designed to prosecute gangs or gang members for their gang-motivated crimes.

Border security, as a constituent element of public safety, is, of course, a national imperative. Advocates in favor of fortifying border protections could strengthen their arguments by pushing for comprehensive action against criminal street gangs, with Congressional passage of a federal anti-gang prosecution act serving as the lynchpin. Such measures would universally apply, regardless of a given gang member’s nationality. Compelling statistics and commentary are readily available to support this approach.