He had lived in Portland, working legally as a mechanic as he watched the Xalisco system expand. “In Portland,” he said, “I’d see [the police] grab people with twenty or thirty balloons and they’d let them go. That’s why people began to come to Portland, because they weren’t afraid. They saw there were no consequences. ‘We get caught with this and they let us go.’” Word spread back in Xalisco that cells did well in Portland, and, furthermore, arrested drivers were only deported. More cells crowded into town, he said.
