On February 4 in Dallas, Abbott announced his “Securing Texans” plan, a $300 million proposal to add 1,000 “boots on the ground” in a “continuous surge” or “permanent border shield” along the Texas-Mexico border.
“We must do more to protect our border going beyond sporadic surges,” the
Texas Tribune reported Abbott as saying. “As governor, I will almost double the spending for DPS border security.”
At the announcement, Abbott cited specific examples of public corruption, with every example occurring on the border—in Cameron, Hidalgo and Starr counties.
He then added the controversial remark: “This creeping corruption resembles third world country practices that erode the social fabric of our communities and destroy Texans’ trust and confidence in government.”
As Abbott addressed El Pasoans this week, he added, “Our porous border is allowing ruthless cartels and violent transnational gangs to operate more freely within the state of Texas.”
“Gangs like the Barrio Azteca, the Texas Syndicate, Tango Blast and countless others are infiltrating schools across the state,” he continued.
It sounds terrifying. It’s meant to sound terrifying. It’s election season.
However, the facts tell a different story.
1. Barrio Azteca, Mexican Mafia and Tango Blast are prison gangs born and bred in Texas, not Mexico.
While Barrio Azteca and other prison gangs in the state are framed as “Mexican” or “border” gangs, the fact is that many of these criminal gangs are not a product of Mexico, they’re a product of Texas—more specifically, they’re a product of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ).
Barrio Azteca was formed in 1986 as a prison gang in the Coffield Unit of TDCJ. The Coffield Unit is located in Anderson County, about 100 miles southeast of Dallas.
The gang was formed by five El Paso inmates, living in the unit, to protect themselves from established Texas prison gangs, including the Mexikanemi and the Texas Syndicate.
The Mexikanemi, also known as the Texas Mexican Mafia, was founded in the Texas prison system in the early 1980s and the Texas Syndicate was founded in Folsom Prison in California during the early 1970s.
Tango Blast, another gang cited by Abbott, emerged in the late 1990s in prisons in Houston, Austin, Dallas and Fort Worth.
Of these prison gangs, none were founded on the border. Nevertheless, since the 1980s, Barrio Azteca has evolved into a violent transnational criminal organization.
“In the 2000s, the (Barrio Azteca) formed an alliance in Mexico with ‘La Linea,’ which is part of the Juarez Drug Cartel (also known as the Vincente Carrillo Fuentes Drug Cartel or ‘VCF’),” according to a June 2012 DOJ statement. “The purpose of the (Barrio Azteca)-La Linea alliance was to battle the Chapo Guzman Cartel and its allies for control of the drug trafficking routes through Juarez and Chihuahua.”
At the time, Barrio Azteca operated by purchasing drugs at a discount from their Mexican supplier and then distributing the drugs to street dealers. Those dealers were then required to pay “taxes” to Barrio Azteca collectors.
“When (the “tax”) is collected by the (Barrio Azteca), members and leaders deposit the money into the commissary accounts of incarcerated (Barrio Azteca) leaders, often using fake names or female associates to send the money by wire transfer,” continues the DOJ statement. The incarcerated gang leaders then “receive laundered funds and disperse it within the Texas State prison system to further the criminal goals of the enterprise.”
Unfortunately, Barrio Azteca isn’t the only gang operating across borders from within our prison system. According to a 2008 analysis by Austin-based intelligence firm Stratfor, “there are at least nine well-established prison gangs with connections to Mexican drug cartels” within the United States.
In addition, “white supremacists groups, mixed-race motorcycle gangs and African-American street gangs also have formed extensive alliances with Mexican cartels,” the Stratfor analysis says.
So, the reality is clearly more complex than the campaign rhetoric. If there is “spillover violence,” it flows not only south to north, it flows north to south, from Texas to the border and into Mexico.