Apprehensions of known gang members by the U.S. Border Patrol

At the time of this posting, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection CBP Enforcement Statistics page breaks down CBP enforcement actions for fiscal year 2019 to-date, covering October 1, 2018 through August 31, 2019.

Under “Gang Affiliated Enforcement”, a table appears beneath the heading U.S. Border Patrol Nationwide Apprehensions by Gang Affiliation. The following table contains the same data, where gangs that are represented by statistically insignificant numbers are combined together in the “Other” row.

Gang Affiliation FY15 FY16 FY17 FY18 FY19TD 18th Street 84 47 61 145 165 Latin Kings 16 0 6 7 21 MS-13 335 253 228 413 445 Mexican Mafia 4 6 4 3 7 Nortenos 14 5 6 5 6 Paisas 73 119 53 62 82 Surenos (sur-13) 140 90 66 66 68 Tango Blast 14 16 8 8 19 Other 164 166 104 99 120 Total 844 702 536 808 933

Since the above table only contains eleven months of data for fiscal year 2019, here is the some table with the FY19 column “ratioed up” to project the total for a twelve-month fiscal year.

Gang Affiliation FY15 FY16 FY17 FY18 FY19 (est) 18th Street 84 47 61 145 180 Latin Kings 16 0 6 7 23 MS-13 335 253 228 413 485 Mexican Mafia 4 6 4 3 8 Nortenos 14 5 6 5 7 Paisas 73 119 53 62 89 Surenos (sur-13) 140 90 66 66 74 Tango Blast 14 16 8 8 21 Other 164 166 104 99 131 Total 844 702 536 808 1,018

From fiscal year 2015 through FY 2017 there was a significant drop in Border Patrol apprehensions of known gang members, then the rate picked up significantly in FY 2018. By FY 2019, the rate will have more-or-less doubled in comparison with FY 2017.

This trend follows the recent historical pattern of total Border Patrol apprehensions at the U.S. southwest border. The following apprehension statistics are from the Customs and Border Protection Southwest Border Migration page which, as above, represents the first eleven months of fiscal year 2019 as of the time of this posting.

FY15 FY16 FY17 FY18 FY19TD 444,859 553,378 415,517 521,090 926,769

Again, ratioing up fiscal year 2019 to represent a full twelve months:

FY15 FY16 FY17 FY18 FY19 (est) 444,859 553,378 415,517 521,090 1,011,021

From the above tables, a pattern of gang membership as a fraction of total illegal immigration is recognized. 1 or 2 out of every thousand illegal immigrants apprehended at the southwest border are recognized by the U.S. Border Patrol as belonging to an organized criminal gang.