Esteban had never heard of the prison gang Los Paisas until he was held at the Adelanto immigrant detention center in California. As soon as he passed through the bars of his housing unit, other detainees made it clear he had to choose: join them or join another group made up of Russians, Indians, Chinese, and Armenians. He understood that doing neither would leave him defenseless, so he accepted. There was no initiation ritual and he was not asked to swear allegiance. The rules were simple: protect your own from violent people, settle internal disputes, and keep a measure of order in a place where authority often seemed insufficient. Over the months, deportations and transfers took away people he knew. They were replaced by newcomers, some of whom did not understand the dynamics of detention. He had to teach them. Before he knew it, Esteban was among the most long-standing members and, without seeking the role, he became one of the leaders of the gang.

“We Paisas are anyone who speaks Spanish: Mexicans, Central Americans, Cubans. A number of people who were gang members arrived with us, fully tattooed, who wanted to feel like they owned the place, wanted to boss the weakest around, and got violent. But we didn’t allow that. We banded together and told those people: ‘You know what? It’s going to be like this here, or you leave.’ We gave them a bag, they put their things in it, and they left on their own,” says Esteban, who agreed to speak to EL PAÍS on condition of anonymity.

This Hispanic man spent nearly a year in one of Adelanto’s housing areas reserved for detainees that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) considers medium- to high-risk. These hold people accused or convicted of serious crimes, including gang members, murderers, rapists, and drug traffickers. After serving their sentences in state or federal prisons, many are moved to immigration detention centers while they await deportation. In Adelanto, they are often identified by orange or red uniforms.

But in those same units are also migrants whose criminal cases remain open, as was the case with Esteban. He is charged with attempted homicide. Last year, while he was fighting his case out on bail, ICE agents arrested him as he was heading to his job in Los Angeles. Days later he was sent to Adelanto. “When I first arrived, there were a lot of problems. People were constantly getting into fights with each other. At first, I was afraid they’d label me as a gang member, but I became a Paisa because that’s what was expected. There was no other choice,” he recalls. He was released a few weeks ago and was able to return to his home in Los Angeles.

The Adelanto detention center, one of the largest in California, rises in the Mojave Desert about 90 miles northeast of Los Angeles. The facility, with capacity for 1,940 people, is operated by the private company GEO Group under a contract with ICE. For years it has been the subject of complaints alleging abuse, medical negligence, poor food, overcrowding and the deaths of migrants. A recent report from the California attorney general added another concern to the list: the alleged excessive use of force by security staff charged with overseeing the complex.

In addition, migrants in ICE custody are exposed to violent situations. In Adelanto and some other centers, inmates live alongside prison gangs that wield power within the housing units. Prominent among them are Los Paisas and Los Sureños, considered the “soldiers” of the criminal organization known as the Mexican Mafia or La Eme; and their historic rivals, Los Norteños, linked to the criminal group Nuestra Familia.

“It’s a dangerous situation because you have people who have been in extremely violent prisons, with gangs where killings regularly occur, and suddenly they’re next to someone who has never had legal trouble, maybe only for drunk driving, a traffic ticket, or crossing the border illegally,” explains Gabe Morales, author of several books on prison gangs and former chief of security at the ICE detention center in Tacoma, Washington.

“They attack them, harass them, take their belongings, their food. Many people are afraid of them because they have committed murders inside and outside prisons,” he adds.

ICE’s press office said in a statement provided to EL PAÍS that its detention centers use a classification system to separate detainees by security risk, criminal history, gang affiliation, and other factors. “ICE detention standards require centers to maintain safe, orderly environments while maximizing detention capacity and public safety,” the agency said. It however did not specifically address illicit activities or violent incidents that occur inside its facilities.

“They can be very violent”

The history of Los Paisas goes back to the mid-1980s, when a growing number of Mexican migrants convicted of violent crimes who did not speak English began arriving at Folsom State Prison in northern California. Morales links that phenomenon to the tougher immigration policies of the era. Outnumbered by Los Sureños and Los Norteños — a disadvantage that made them easy prey — many of those inmates banded together for protection. Border Brothers was born, adopting the hierarchical structure typical of prison gangs.

A decade later a split occurred. Some newly arrived Mexicans rejected Border Brothers’ rules and began meeting on their own. They referred to one another affectionately as “paisa,” a derivative of paisano. The group grew quickly.

“At one point Los Paisas outnumbered Border Brothers. They began organizing by states of origin: those from Sinaloa, those from Jalisco, those from Guanajuato. Many tattooed phrases like ‘Hecho en México’ or the eagle from the old Mexican commercial logo. That’s because they are first-generation immigrants who don’t speak English and haven’t fully assimilated American culture,” Morales explains.

According to the specialist, part of their expansion was due to imposing fewer rules than other organizations. The group exists only behind bars, he says. “They don’t have a rigid structure. They consider themselves equals. Unlike Los Sureños, when they leave prison no one retains authority over the others. Inside prison they may appoint someone to represent them to other gangs, something like an ambassador. Today they accept Cubans, Colombians and Central Americans, although about 90% of their members remain Mexican,” he explains.

Today Los Paisas rank among the country’s largest prison gangs and are present in both federal prisons and immigration detention centers. Some members have experience serving sentences in penitentiaries in their home countries. “They’re in places you wouldn’t expect: Arkansas, Georgia, New Jersey. Wherever there is a sizable Mexican population, they’re probably there,” Morales says. “And they can be very violent. They have taken part in riots and clashes in numerous prisons.”

Miguel, a South American migrant who asked that his identity be withheld, says he suffered that violence during his time at an ICE detention center in Texas. “I had to give them part of the food I bought with money my family sent me. If I didn’t, they beat me or prevented me from leaving the unit. They did the same to other people,” he told this newspaper.

Afraid of retaliation and convinced immigration authorities would not protect him, he never reported the abuse. “They controlled the internal sale of drugs. They wanted me to become Paisa. I never accepted and I paid dearly. I didn’t get relief from them until I was released,” he recalls.

Esteban, for his part, denies that the group in Adelanto he belonged to was dedicated to intimidating other detainees or engaging in criminal activity. Those who did that acted on their own, he says.

Morales maintains that the reality of Los Paisas varies considerably from one facility to another and from one political context to another. Not all of their groups, he explains, seek to exert control over other detainees or participate in illegal activities.

The former chief of security at the ICE detention center in Washington State attributes part of that change to shifts in the population in immigration custody. As the government of Donald Trump increased detentions of migrants without serious criminal histories, ICE centers began housing people with profiles very different from those that predominated years earlier. “I worked at the Tacoma center during the Biden administration in 2022. There were murderers, rapists, thieves, drug traffickers. We didn’t have working Mexicans, less-violent Paisas, like now,” he says.

Disputes

Among Los Paisas, leadership positions often fall to those who are older, have longer tenures behind bars and speak both English and Spanish. The gang dominates by numbers: in that section of Adelanto there were about 60 members, almost three times the size of the group made up of migrants from Asia and Europe, who mostly communicated in English.

At the center, Esteban’s authority was not limited to other detainees. Guards also saw him as a kind of informal intermediary within the unit. Each day he received reports about what was happening in the module. He had to mediate disputes, calm tensions, and decide who could stay and who had to leave. “They would tell me: so-and-so fought with such-and-such, they removed that one, this many new people arrived.” According to his account, when he informed guards that a detainee was causing problems they tended to move him to another unit, typically one where risks were higher.

Esteban says the most frequent disputes revolved around the tablets the center lent detainees to listen to music, watch movies, or communicate with their families. There were just over 20 devices, so each had to be shared by several people. It was enough for someone to exceed the agreed time for an argument to erupt.

Often it was Esteban who had to intervene to prevent disagreements from escalating, even when they involved men convicted of serious crimes and people he feared. “I lived with people who had killed someone, but who no longer wanted trouble. They just wanted to get out as soon as possible and became calmer. They didn’t have the same hatred they had in prison,” he reflects.

Despite the differences, coexistence was usually peaceful. People settled their disputes among themselves. Sometimes they shared food and even exchanged one of the most coveted items inside the center: jars of peanut butter.

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Early results from California’s primary elections indicate that the Democrat Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton, a Republican, will face off for the governorship of the nation’s most populous state in a November runoff. Both candidates emerged from a tight contest that will shape the state’s political direction after the departure of Governor Gavin Newsom, one of the most visible opponents of President Donald Trump. Since 2011, California has been under Democratic control and has become a laboratory for progressive policies that often clash with the White House agenda.

With roughly 55% of votes counted in the slow California tally, Hilton was just ahead of Becerra with 27.6% and 25.5% respectively, and are poised to be the two candidates most likely to advance to the November 3 election. There were 61 candidates on the ballot. Under the system known as the jungle primary or open primary, only the two contenders with the most votes move on to the next round, regardless of party affiliation.

Trump’s influence was evident in this election: through his platform Truth Social he urged his followers on Tuesday to vote for Hilton. “He will work with me and the Federal Government, the money will flow because I have confidence in him (but not any of the others!), and we will MAKE CALIFORNIA GREAT AGAIN,” the president wrote. Vice President J. D. Vance also joined in praising the candidate, stressing that the state needs better political leadership.

This is being described as the most expensive governor’s race in U.S. history, surpassing $315 million in spending, most of it on advertising, according to data compiled by AdImpact. The total swelled after the billionaire Tom Steyer, who founded one of San Francisco’s largest investment firms, poured more than $200 million of his own money into the campaign. But it was not enough to secure the Democratic bid, and he now appears set to finish third with just under 20% of the vote.

A Becerra win in November would signal continuity in the confrontational approach toward Trump that marked Newsom’s tenure. A victory for Hilton, by contrast, would signal a turn toward a conservative agenda aligned with the president’s priorities on immigration, public safety, the economy and government regulation.

With backing from Trump and the Republican Party apparatus, Hilton has pledged to turn the state red again. The former political commentator broke through in the race on two promises: revive an economy strained by rising living costs and toughen public safety measures, while also supporting operations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Hilton began his political career in Britain, where he was born. He had ties to the Conservative Party during the Margaret Thatcher era, moved to California in 2012 and started a career as a Fox News host. His plan, in his own style, is to repeat the feat of another immigrant who became governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Since the movie star left office at the end of his second term in January 2011, no other Republican has held the post.

Becerra, for his part, seeks to become California’s first Hispanic governor in more than a century. The son of Mexican immigrants and a former secretary of Health in the Joe Biden administration, he has centered his campaign on defending the “California way of life,” protecting immigrants and expanding social programs that, he says, were undermined by policies pursued under Trump. Becerra has a 35-year political career that includes service in the state Assembly, the U.S. Congress and as California’s attorney general. He highlights as an achievement the fact that, with more than 120 lawsuits, he restrained Trump during his first term and proposes to repeat that strategy.

The outcome of the November midterms could have repercussions beyond the state’s borders and influence the Democratic strategy heading into the 2028 presidential contest. Outgoing Governor Newsom continues to signal a possible run for the White House.

During Trump’s first term (2017–2021), California positioned itself as the main center of resistance on issues such as immigration, climate change, reproductive rights and social justice. Although it remains one of the most favorable territories for the Democratic Party, Republican influence has grown in recent years: California was the third-largest state for Trump in 2024 (six million votes), behind only Texas and Florida.

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