I recently asked a friend of long standing, involved in law enforcement in California, how the state’s massive immigration looked, in the streets and court rooms, to someone actually there. The following is his answer, edited only to remove identification. It is consisten with what I have seen myself, though a decade ago, and what other friends in other parts of the US report. I have put in bold type parts that seem to me indicators of what we will see in the future.

Fred,

The following are my opinions based mostly on anecdotal evidence–what I’ve seen and heard in this area (Central California), including things told to me in some cases by deputy district attorneys thoughout this state. I attend frequent state wide conferences wherein we are given week long seminar courses to update our knowledge and to maintain our “continuing education” required to keep our State Bar memberships current. Where my opinion is based on provable facts, I will so note.

The future of Hispanics in California: California will gradually revert to a Mexican/Spanish majority state, thanks both to legal/illegal immigration as well as the higher birth rate amongst that population, particularly in the lower income brackets (this is of course the case with any lower income population, which relates directly to education levels: the higher the education, particularly of women in a population, the lower the birth rate goes).

Politicians in this state are already splitting between Hispanic (meaning mostly Mexican-Americans) and White, with a very few Asian politicians, including Indians. I am not certain of the percentages, but in places like the state legislature, Hispanics have occupied the key positions in the recent past. The mayors of some of the larger cities are Hispanics. Places like San Francisco and its nearby Silicon Valley (actually mostly Santa Clara County/San Jose, and San Mateo County) will continue electing white liberal politicians, coming from the wealthier enclaves whose inhabitants live behind gated communities and use cheap Hispanic labor whilst decrying discrimination against the same folks they are exploiting.

The fantastic wealth generated in Silicon Valley remains firmly in the hands of whites, for reasons too complex to relate here. That money buys elections for “people like us” meaning the white liberals will contribute lots of money to white campaigns in their communities. I don’t see white liberals donating money to Mexican-American citizens for elections within their own communities, although I know they are willing to help elect hispanics to run Los Angeles, Stockton, and other major cities.

Cities are seeing more and more Hispanics running locally for office, though they still don’t have as much political clout as their numbers would suggest. For instance, it is believed that San Joaquin County is nearly 50% Hispanic, with a significant portion of that being from illegal immigration. I see that in court every day. I handle a lot of midsdemeanor cases, which include domestic violence (DV), drunk driving (DUI), drugs, shoplifting and minor thefts, and so on.

I can say from my perspective that around 50% of the DUIs are hispanic, and of those, the majority are here illegally. We cannot ask them in court their legal status in the US, but it is fairly obvious. We keep a Spanish language interpreter on hand every day, as we usually need him for a few of the cases. Most of the illegals speak enough English to make it through a court appearance without an interpreter, so the ones who need it are rare and stand out as illegals even more than others. But we have DUI cases where the driver is carrying a Mexican driver’s license–not recognized in California–or presents a Mexican Counselor ID card to prove his identity.

Those ID cards, by the way, are obtainable for the asking, without proof of birth in Mexico or other evidence, so are virtually useless in determining ID–critical in finding out whether the subject has prior arrests, convictions, etc.–but are accepted in court and law enforcement.

DV is so common amongst Mexican-Americans and the illegals that we call it “Mexican foreplay”. Probably 60 to 70 percent of my DV cases involve Mexicans/Hispanics. The remaining cases are mostly white, often precipitated by drugs or alcohol. Tweakers and alcoholics seem to have tendencies to beat their wives/gfs–or sometimes the tweaker girls beat their boyfriends. For some reason, DV is rare in the black community.

DUI seems to be a Mexican national hobby. I get far more hispanic defendants in that category than any other. And they seem to be most likely to repeat.

As for overall crimes, Mexican gangs pretty well drive the shootings, drug wars, and murders in this area. When I arrived here seven or eight years ago, the area was well saturated with black, asian and hispanic gangs, seemingly of equal status and numbers. The whites who had gang tendencies ended up in the biker clubs, which avoid gang wars, handle meth distribution, and ride motorcycles. Kind of an “odd man out” syndrome for the whites.

The black and asian gangs here have been fairly well marginalized over the past few years since I began here, by the Mexican gangs. The real power is in the Norteños here. The Norteños pride themselves in being mostly “legal” Mexican Americans, whereas the Sureños have a lot of illegal Mexican immigrant kids in their gangs. The drug cartels in Mexico are beginning to run the drug distribution networks in California, whereas in the past it was rather like a contract deal: whatever gang could handle the drugs and get rid of the competition got the drugs to sell. Now, it seems as if the cartels are sending direct orders to various gangs–all Mexican.

We are hearing of direct murder orders as well coming from the cartel bosses, which was not the case in the past. I expect then that the Sureños will ascend in power, given their more direct dealings with the Mexican cartels. The real dividing line in this state between where the Sureños are the most powerful gang and where the Norteños are the leading gang seems to be Bakersfield, from what I’ve been told and have seen. Meaning of course, that the Norteños are more powerful north of Bakersfield, while the Sureños rule in the southern California areas. That is not true everywhere, as some areas are disputed and some are changing all the time.

This has implications not recognized by most people. When you get sentenced to county jail (and most crimes are being turned into county jail crimes, not state prison, under a series of new laws “liberalizing” criminal behavior) as a Sureño in San Joaquin County, you are in for a rougher ride than most; the jails are populated by a majority of Norteños, who make life Hell for their Sureño rivals. The state prisons have to provide separate dorms, cell blocks and facilities to keep Sureños and Norteños apart. I’ve toured state prisons and was told by guards that this or that entire cell block/buliding was “ruled” by Nortenos or Surenos–the guards really didn’t have control.

Whites and blacks often are housed in the same cell blocks together as there are not enough whites or blacks to take over entire cell blocks in some prisons, whereas the Mexican gang members are present in large enough numbers to require that in order to maintain peace and provide for the safety of the felons. Yes, yes, the State is responsible if they whack each other and will lose millions of dollars in lawsuits by families represented by weird “civil rights” lawyers who hate themselves for being rich, white or male, or all the above.

How widespread is crime? One city of which I am aware had a murder rate two years ago that was six times the national average–virtually all due to gang fights and drug deals gone wrong.

The past year, following saturation by combination patrols and sweeps of Federal, State, County and City police, the murder rate there dropped to about two to three times the national average. It is climbing again this year, rapidly. The drop was brought about by an interesting strategy: numbers-crunchers noted that about 50% of the major crime was caused by only 5% of the criminal population (repeat offenders–most of what I deal with are people with rap sheets–prior crimes). Those same 5% also committed about 80-90% of the murders and other violent crimes. Focus on those, it was opined, and violent crime should drop.

So they went after those people ID’d as violent, repeat offenders, most of whom were on parole or probation–virtually all of those were “searchable”, meaning their conditions of parole or probation, agreed to by them in order to obtain relase from prison, included a requirement that they submit themselves, their persons, property, homes, vehicles, etc. to search without probable cause. Those types were followed, watched, monitored in every way possible and legal, and when a search condition arose (in spite of the “anytime, anywhere, no cause needed” terms of the probation/parole, the cops still need a valid reason to stop them like broken taillights, suspicious behavior, etc.), they would be searched immediately. They nearly always carry something wrong: a baggie of MJ, a rock of crack, a knife, a gun, a crystal of meth–or the stolen property they just lifted from somwhere. And they would go back to the prison on a parole/probation violation.

Parole and probation violations are dealt with rapidly–no waiting for trial, some hearsay testimony is okay, and the case gets a hearing within days or weeks, not six months to a year–and no release on probation (after all, he is in court because he couldn’t meet the terms of his probation).

The joint task force efforts are on-going but I think have eased up because of the enormous cost to other agencies whose mandate doesn’t include local policing, like BATF, FBI, DEA, Highway Patrol and others. In addition things are changing about probation and parole–most cases will now go to county jail instead of away to state prison. And the county jails are overflowing, releasing prisoners every week per Federal court requirements.

Thus, we’ve seen the murder rate jump up again. And it is again mostly Mexican gangs doing the killing. I can read the reports on local murders and see the hispanic suspect names, the fact that the victim was hispanic, in the local park after dark (usually around midnight or up to 4am), and the age and know immediately that it was a gang event.

Relations between white, brown and black? The hispanics generally despise blacks. I have been told by people who know that once hispanics move into a low income neighborhood in Los Angeles, the gangs go down the street and warn young black males to be out of that neighborhood, ASAP–move, run away, whatever, but just don’t be seen here next week. Neighborhoods that were once “black” and had a black gang culture have been transformed–the blacks driven out. The black gangs don’t seem to have it together as well as the hispanic gangs. Can’t say why but you can speculate as well as I can.

As for whites and hispanics, first the whites don’t generally have gangs except for the Aryan Brotherhood in prison and the occasional biker gangs, but they don’t operate like the other racially oriented gangs. Perhaps because, as the dominant culture, they don’t have to. The Mexican gangs don’t usually bother the whites, unless something affects both cultures.

One example about “cultures” and the gangs: I’ve been approached in a health club locker room by Nortenos who were upset by the fact that white and asian men were walking nude with their towels from the lockers to the showers–a “normal” behavior for both cultures. But Mexicans frequently do not want to show their bodies off; I often see them showering with their shorts on. They may then change into dry shorts at the locker, but are half hidden when they do. Or they put their outer clothes over their wet shorts.

So the Norteno gang members let us know they were enforcing “community standards” (meaning both Mexican and Mexican gang culture) on us and the locals. They emphasized to us that they were “soldiers” tasked with that job. We were advised not to walk nude to and from the showers again. There was no doubt they were Nortenos and what they were doing. Their actions became the subject of some activity by our local police gang task forces–we were never bothered again, and in fact, we haven’t seen obvious gang members at that health club since.

The relations between whites and hispanics on a macro level are reasonable, though some whites are aware that they are losing political power in this state to hispanics. There is some friction at the political area where that is becoming obvious as some hispanic activists make political demands of white politicians and point out the demographics and projection figures, which favor them. I think the friction between the black politicians and hispanic politicians is more egregious, given that their activists are splitting the same pot: entitlements, special consideration, and handouts. But that doesn’t spill over into the general populations of both races/ethnic groups.

At least with the hispanic politicians and activists, they span the spectrum of income levels and education: hispanics, like whites and asians, promote education, work ethic, and moving up the socio-economic ladder, whereas the black activists assume their racial demographic will remain uneducated, low income, etc., without any movement, needing help like children for generations to come. It’s all caused by slavery you know.

(Fred note: “The University of California has admitted more Hispanics than whites for the first time….”:Wall Street Journal.)

Crime has definitely increased due to recent Mexican immigration. And it’s been the worst sort of crime: murders, drug dealing, cartel stuff, and so on. Add to that the significant “minor” crimes of DV and DUIs, and you have quite a drain on our criminal justice/court system.

Assimilation? Mexican Americans are becoming a bit more isolated from other races as they gain demographic advantage, meaning that they retain much of their culture rather than assimilating. Unlike German, Irish, English, Danish, Nowegian, Indian children of immigrants, they don’t try as hard to be “American” but keep calling themselves hispanic or Mexican, celebrating–and demanding the rest of America celebrate–Mexican national holidays and adopt Mexican habits and lifestyles. (I like the food, but really, insisting that Cinco de Mayo be an American holiday??) I don’t see much antagonism to mixed race marriages/relationships between hispanics and whites, though I am sure it exists–just not at the level of mixing blacks and whites (to both races–many blacks, especially black women, hate any black male who mates with white women). And by way of note, the prejudice against mixing Asians and any other race, whether white, black or hispanic, comes from Asians–they are tremendously racist, as a general attitude. (I am speaking in sweeping generalities here–but one cannot speak truth any more, as it is not politically correct).

I think I gave you far more than you expected, Fred. In fact, I have to work for the taxpayers now…. got to go!!