Migrants At The Mercy Of Gangs: ICE Detainees Forced To Live Alongside Organized Crime

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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