Remember the presidential election? Remember how everybody on both sides and the idependent middle kept throwing around this word, "immigration"? Remember how immigration was a meat-cleaver of a subject, divisive, explosive, paramount, urgent? Now it's all over, and I keep asking myself: where did immigration go?

I haven't done this in a year or so. I swore I'd never get back to Immigration Monday. I turned my immigration readers over to Bender's Immigration Bulletin, and good riddance to that crap.

But I had to tell you something. Then I'll drop it. I am not a prophet. Yet, all my predictions in The Devil's Highway and in my endless DH related speaking events have come true. From the drops in illegal immigration numbers for a period along the Yuma/Wellton corridors, to the changes in the Border Patrol. From the rise of narco violence, to the boondoggle of the border fence. I long thought the border would be militarized--what I did not figure out was that the border would be militarized by the Mexican army. I watch the Mexican surge in Juarez with real interest. I don't want to. I am sick of the whole sad ugly border and its endless depravity, stupidity, duplicity, violence, despair, racism and lies. But I can't tear my eyes away.

You see, I love the people of the border. I am from the border. I love its optimism, its hubbub, its warmth, its humor. If you have read any Immigration Mondays, you know I love its literature (yes--there is a florescence of border lit that is beautiful and potent). I love its music (Nortec, Artefakto, Bostich, etc.). I love its food, colors, joy, toughness. I'll admit it--I sometimes love its danger. Makes me feel like Joe Bad when I'm romping around the Tijuana garbage dump or Sasabe. I happen to like Juarez. And hey--I was born in Tijuana.

However, I told you that the narco war was the new paradigm. I rang that bell for years and felt that nobody listened. I kept insisting that the narcos were going to take over the coyotes' work, and when they did, the level of horror would escalate in ways nobody could imagine. Didn't get a lot of traction.

Now look. Front page of today's Chicago Tribune. CARTELS' LATES EXPORT? HUMANS. Here's the URL so you can read it: http://tinyurl.com/d2nn54. I warned people five years ago that some Scarfcace would consolidate the criminal enterprise of the border into a conglomerate cartel of drugs, weapons, professional violence, illegal immigration and sexual slavery. And here 'tis.

Coincidentally, the New York Times ran a front-page story today, too: narco violence in the USA. It's here, and it's not going away. Phoenix is the kidnapping capital of the country. The cartels have operations flourishing in Atlanta, Boston. Operatives are in the Carolinas, Illinois. This is not a question of coyotes with walkie-talkies. This is a multi-national operation. It's like SMERSH. Send in James Bond.

I know a Mexican politician in a major US city who has had to change addresses and has had to hide his email because the cartels have started to make moves against him. It's on, people. The war is on. The border is Pakistan on your back step.

Read Don Winslow's The Power of the Dog if you want to know the truth.

# posted by Luis @ 11:00 AM