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:REALLY GOOD ANALYSIS

AN 10 25

A grim-faced President Donald J. Trump looks out at the reader, under the headline “LAW AND ORDER.” Graffiti pictured in the corner of the White House Facebook post reads “Death to ICE.” Beneath that, a photo of protesters, choking on tear gas. And underneath it all, a smaller headline: “President Trump Deploys 2,000 National Guard After ICE Agents Attacked, No Mercy for Lawless Riots and Looters.”

The official communication from the White House appeared on Facebook in June 2025, after Trump sent in troops to quell protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Los Angeles. Visually, it is melodramatic, almost campy, resembling a TV promotion.

The post is not an outlier.

In the Trump administration, White House social media posts often blur the lines between politics and entertainment, and between reality and illusion.

The White House has released AI images of Trump as the Pope, as Superman and as a Star Wars Jedi, ready to do battle with “Radical Left Lunatics” who would bring “Murderers, Drug Lords … & well-known MS-13 Gang Members” into the country.

Most recently, on the weekend of the No Kings protests, both Trump and the White House released a video of the president wearing a crown and piloting a fighter jet, from which he dispenses feces onto a crowd of protesters below.

Underpinning it all is a calculated political strategy: an appeal to Trump’s political base – largely white, working-class, rural or small-town, evangelical and culturally conservative.

As scholars who study communication in politics and the media, we believe the White House’s rhetoric and style is part of a broader global change often found in countries experiencing increased polarization and democratic backsliding.

White House style

In the past, national leaders generally favored a professional tone, whether on social or traditional media. Their language was neutral and polished, laced with political jargon.

While populist political communication has become more common along with the proliferation of social media, the communication norms are further altered in Trump White House social media posts.

They are partisan, theatrical and exaggerated. Their tone is almost circuslike. The process of governing is portrayed as a reality TV show, in which political roles are performed with little regard for real-world consequences. Vivid color schemes and stylized imagery convert political messaging into visual spectacle. The language is colloquial, down-to-earth.

Just as other influencers in a variety of domains might create an emotional bond by tailoring social media messages, content, products and services to the needs and likes of individual customers, the White House tailors its content to the beliefs, language and worldview of Trump’s political base.

In doing so, the White House echoes a broad, growing trend in political communication, portraying Trump as “a champion of the people” and using direct and informal communication that appeals to fear and resentment.

Trump White House social media makes no effort to promote social unity or constructive dialogue, or reduce polarization – and often heightens it. Undocumented immigrants, for example, are often portrayed as inherently evil. White House social media amplifies dramatic, emotionally charged content.

In one video, Trump recites a poem about a kind woman who takes in a snake, a stand-in for an immigrant who in reality is a dangerous serpent. “Instead of saying thanks, that snake gave her a vicious bite,” Trump recites.

Talking to the base

While some scholars have called the White House social media style “amateurish,” that hasn’t resulted in change.

The lack of response to negative feedback is partially explained by the strategic goal of these communications: to appeal to the frustrations of Trump’s deeply disaffected political base, which seems to revel in the White House social media style.

Scholars identify a large number of these voters as “the precariat,” a group whose once-stable, union-protected jobs have been outsourced or replaced with low-wage, insecure service work. These workers, many former Democrats, can no longer count on a regular paycheck, benefits or work they can identify with.

As a result, they are more likely to support political candidates whom they believe will respond to their economic instability.

In addition, many of these voters blame a breakdown in what they perceive as the racial pecking order for a loss of social status, especially when compared with more highly educated workers. Many of these workers distrust the media and other elite institutions they feel have failed them. Research shows that they are highly receptive to messages that confirm their grievances and that many regard Trump as their champion.

Trump and the White House social media play to this audience.

On social media, the president is free to violate norms that anger his critics but have little effect on his supporters, who view the current political system as flawed. One example: A White House Valentine’s Day communication that said “Roses are red, violets are blue, come here illegally, and we’ll deport you.”

In addition, Trump and the White House social media use the president’s status as a celebrity, coupled with comedy and spectacle, to immunize the administration from fallout, even among some of its critics.

Trump’s exaggerated gestures, over-the-top language, his lampooning of opponents and his use of caricature to ridicule whole categories of people – including Democrats, the disabled, Muslims, Mexicans and women – is read by his political base as a playful and entertaining take down of political correctness. It may form a sturdy pillar of his support.

But prioritizing entertainment over facts has long-term significance.

Trump’s communication strategies are already setting a global precedent, encouraging other politicians to adopt similar theatrical and polarizing tactics that distort or deny facts.

These methods may energize some audiences but risk alienating others. Informed political engagement is reduced, and democratic backsliding is increasingly a reality.

Although the communication style of the White House is playful and irreverent, it has a serious goal: the diffusion of ideological messages whose intent is to create a sense of strength and righteousness among its supporters.

In simple terms, this is propaganda designed to persuade citizens that the government is strong, its enemies evil and that fellow citizens – “real Americans” – think the same way.

Scholars observe that the White House projection of the often comical images of authority echoes the visual style of authoritarian governments. Both seek to be seen as in control of the social and political order and thereby to discourage dissent.

The chief difference between the two is that in a deeply polarized democracy such as the U.S., citizens interpret these displays of authority in sharply different ways: They build opposition among Trump opponents but support among supporters.

The rising intolerance that results erodes social cohesion, undermines support for democratic norms and weakens trust in institutions. And that opens the door to democratic backsliding.

Andrew Rojecki, Professor of Communication, University of Illinois Chicago and Tanja Aitamurto, Associate Professor of Communication, *University of Illinois Chicago

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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MMA

Right-wing media said Chicago ICE raid yielded numerous gang members' arrests. New reporting shows hardly any arrests related to Tren de Aragua.

Written by Gideon Taaffe & Sage Hodil

Published 10/16/25

Right-wing media have cheered Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s September 30 raid on a Chicago apartment, saying they arrested a dozen or dozens of “suspected Tren de Aragua gang members” in an apartment complex “seized by TdA gang members.”

However, the Department of Homeland Security told CNN that just two of the 37 arrested are believed to be gang members. And later DHS told MSNBC it has “verified” one Tren de Aragua member from the raid.

The Trump administration claims that its arrests in Chicago have targeted criminals, but there is little evidence many of the 1,000 people detained by ICE in the city have any criminal convictions. Right-wing media have previously carried water for the Trump administration’s mass deportations that allegedly focus on the “worst of the worst” even though the majority of ICE detainees have no criminal convictions.

ICE's raid on a Chicago apartment building led to dozens of arrests and four children taken into custody. New reporting shows that few if any arrested in that raid or others in Chicago have criminal or gang ties.

//

  1. ### Right-wing media falsely claim benefits go to undocumented immigrants as millions of Americans face health coverage losses

10/14/25 4:20 PM EDT

  1. ### Right-wing media say Portland is a war zone under siege. On-the-ground coverage paints a different picture.

10/10/25 9:40 AM EDT

  1. ### As Trump sends the National Guard into US cities, right-wing media celebrate and call protests “an insurrection”

10/08/25

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AN 10 25

During Wednesday’s White House roundtable on “Antifa,” Trump Cabinet secretaries compared it to international drug cartels and vowed to dismantle it “brick by brick,” while the President described Antifa as “treasonous, probably.”

Antifa, which the President has labeled a “domestic terrorist organization,” is widely seen as a movement of people opposed to fascism and racism. It is not believed to be a formal organization. BBC News describes it as “a loosely organized, leftist movement that opposes far-right, racist and fascist groups,” and which “lacks a distinct leader, membership list or structure. In 2020, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress that Antifa was better defined as an ideology than as a formal organization.”

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem told roundtable attendees, “One of the individuals we arrested recently in Portland was the girlfriend of one of the founders of Antifa.”

Secretary Noem said they are “hoping that as we go after her, interview her and prosecute her, we will get more and more information about the network and how we can root them out, and eliminate them from the existence of American society.”

READ MORE: ‘Full-Blown Authoritarianism’: Governor Fires Back After Trump Says He Belongs ‘in Jail’

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She also said that “this network of Antifa is just as sophisticated as MS-13, as TdA, as ISIS, as Hezbollah, as Hamas, as all of them.”

“They are just as dangerous. They have an agenda to destroy us, just like the other terrorists we’ve dealt with for many, many years. And today is the day that we have a president that won’t tolerate it, and will stand up and fight for the American people.”

Similarly, Attorney General Pam Bondi said that “fighting crime is more than just getting the bad guy off the streets. It’s breaking down the organization, brick by brick. Just like we did with cartels. We are going to take the same approach, President Trump, with Antifa, destroy the entire organization from top to bottom. We’re going to take them apart.”

“Their hatred for President Trump, and for law and order agendas, fuels their violence,” Bondi said. “We saw what’s happening in Portland and Chicago, and you saw what happened in Dallas. No longer. It is not activism, it’s anarchy. We can’t, and we will not, let masked terrorists burn our buildings, attack our law enforcement, and intimidate our communities.”

She declared that the Trump administration is “deploying the full might of the federal law enforcement to crack down on Antifa and other domestic terrorist organizations.”

READ MORE: ‘The Ground Has Shifted’: Experts Warn After Trump’s ‘Gnat’ Speech to U.S. Navy

President Trump said, “we’re going after Antifa criminals and all who fund and support their campaigns are in serious trouble, and we have a lot of records already, a lot of surprises, a lot of bad surprises — people that you would never think.”

He also asked the group to identify the “funders” of Antifa: “These are people that do not have good intention for the country, and that’s treasonous, probably.”

Critics blasted the event.

“After the US bombed multiple boats in the middle of the ocean, murdering people on grounds that they were allegedly ‘carrying drugs,’ the US Attorney General says ‘Just like we did with cartels, we’re going to take the same approach…with Antifa,'” wrote Zeteo News’ Prem Thakker.

Attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council observed, “Cartels have actual leadership structures, central funding, command and control, and more. ‘Antifa’ is mostly a philosophy. That the Attorney General doesn’t know the difference is quite the thing to admit!”

Bill Kristol, the director of Defending Democracy Together, wrote: “Which is more alarming? That the Homeland Security secretary might actually believe that ‘Antifa’ is as dangerous as Hezbollah or Hamas? Or that she’s willing to engage in this level of lying and demagoguery? Neither is good!”

Olga Lautman, a Russian intelligence expert and senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, pointed to Bondi’s remark about cartels and asked: “Are they planning on sending missiles to American cities to carry out extrajudicial killings.”

SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah issued this warning: “Please understand that This is Trump regime explaining how they will use the government to prosecute Democrats. Page 1 of the fascist playbook is imprison political opponents so that the fascist has one party rule.”

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MMA

September 25, 2025, edition of Vigilance Elite's The Shawn Ryan Show

SHAWN RYAN (HOST): What does it look like if they get into, I mean — I don't even know what we would call it here. I was just gonna call it a TIC, a troops in contact. But I mean, you know, with the MS-13 gangs, the cartels, the Bloods, the Crips, I mean, you know, Hell's Angels, I don't know. You know, there's gang members all over the place, you know, tons of different gangs — I mean, what does it look like if MS-13 pushes back against the National Guard and happens to fire upon them? I mean, do they have ROEs or?

DANIEL DRISCOLL (SECRETARY OF THE ARMY): Yeah, I mean, I think, I think they would see the full might and fury of our United States Army. They would see the full might and fury of the most powerful government in the history of the world. And, I think the president and secretary of war have been very clear that we — they are taking a hard line, and that kind of violence is no longer acceptable in our nation.

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an 9 25

On September 1 in the Caribbean, U.S. Navy forces attacked, on orders from President Donald Trump, a Venezuelan boat he alleges was operated by members of the dangerous Tren de Aragua gang and contained drugs that were headed for the United States. The boat was in international waters, and everyone on board was killed.

The Trump administration continues to aggressively defend that attack and subsequent attacks on boats carried out September 15-19.

But the New York Times' editorial board, in a scathing editorial published on September 24, stresses that Trump acted without concrete proof that people on those boats were smuggling drugs.

"Somewhere mingled in the foam and debris of the Caribbean Sea are the remains of at least 17 people who were killed this month by U.S. military forces on the orders of President Trump," the Times editorial board writes. "They were aboard three speedboats that the Trump Administration said were carrying drugs and smugglers from Venezuela. Perhaps they were. Yet the administration has produced no evidence for its claims. And even if the allegations are correct, blowing up the boats is a lawless exercise in the use of deadly force."

Trump, the Times editorial board notes, "assured the public that the passengers were not only drug traffickers, but also, 'narcoterrorists' and members of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang, which he said was under the control of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela."

"The self-defense justification looks especially weak after The Times reported that the first of the three boats turned away from the United States before being destroyed," the board warns. "With these attacks, Mr. Trump has ordered the summary execution of people who are not at war with the United States in any traditional sense of the term and who may not even have been committing the crime of which he accused them. It is a violation of legal due process that should alarm all Americans. It is even more extreme than his policy of sending migrants to a brutal prison in El Salvador, based on questionable claims that they belonged to Tren de Aragua and without any chance to contest the government's claims."

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The Times board continues, "The United States, created in opposition to monarchy, should never become a country where the president can order the indefinite imprisonment or the unilateral killing of people merely because he has deemed them to be criminals."

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MMA

September 3, 2025, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show, streamed on Rumble

CHARLIE KIRK (HOST): I want start with a story yesterday, which I love, and it was not getting enough coverage. We can go to the b-roll. President Donald Trump has been very clear that he wants to shrink the map and focus on hemispheric dominance. He was trying to end wars abroad and really focus on our own hemisphere being abused. Yesterday — this is the MAGA doctrine, otherwise known as the Monroe Doctrine 2.0 — President Donald Trump authorized a military strike yesterday of drug runners and drug traffickers of Tren de Aragua that were bringing life-ending drugs to the United States, you can kind of see here in a speedboat.

They're in international waters. I don't know all the legal technicalities here. Obviously, it passed the muster because they authorized it, and they did a drone strike in the Caribbean. Alex, what are your thoughts here? I'm at least thrilled finally that we're using military force in our own hemisphere against people that would have done harm against the American homeland. They actually are a much greater threat, what you are seeing on-screen are a much greater threat than Vladimir Putin. Those drug traffickers would've killed a lot more people than Russian soldiers. Alex Marlow.

ALEX MARLOW (EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, BREITBART): Yeah. You're absolutely right about this, Charlie, and this is just perfect in terms of Trump national security doctrine focusing on our hemisphere first, which — I will tell you, our national security editor at Breitbart News, Frances Martel, she's a Latin American woman, and I'll tell you, this hits such close to home with people who've survived — of ancestry who survived communism in our hemisphere, and have seen Democrat after Democrat and establishment Republican after establishment Republican in this country focus on Europe, focus on the Middle East, and not remember our own hemisphere.

Now we're all aware of the threat of Far East in China, but China's has an encroachment that's taking place into that exact hemisphere, into Central and South America, and so I look at all of this as countering China. But let's be specific about fentanyl and drugs and these gangs that are taking advantage of our open border and have created these industries that bring devastating drugs, the type of stuff that not just ruin lives, that ruin families, ruin communities. They come up into our country, and we've allowed it. We've tolerated it. And Trump comes in one fell swoop, wipes out a bunch of them, sends an unbelievable signal that if you try to bring this poison into America, you're going to face deadly consequences. It is just peak Trump, and I love it.

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OMFG

AN PP 6 25

OMG

These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.

In mid-April, President Donald Trump sat down in the Oval Office with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador to celebrate a new partnership. They had recently negotiated an extraordinary deal in which El Salvador agreed to incarcerate in a maximum security prison hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants that the Trump administration had labeled as violent criminals, though few had been convicted of such crimes. The U.S. also sent back accused members of the notorious Salvadoran gang MS-13 — which both the U.S. and El Salvador have designated as a terrorist organization.

Bukele’s presidency has been defined by his successful crackdown against MS-13. He has jailed tens of thousands of alleged gang members, transforming one of the hemisphere’s most dangerous nations into one of its safest. Although human rights groups have criticized his tactics, Bukele remains extremely popular in El Salvador.

During their meeting at the White House, Trump praised his guest as “one hell of a president.” He shook Bukele’s hand, saying, “We appreciate working with you because you want to stop crime and so do we.”

A long-running U.S. investigation of MS-13 has uncovered evidence at odds with Bukele’s reputation as a crime fighter. The inquiry, which began as an effort to dismantle the gang’s leadership, expanded to focus on whether the Bukele government cut a secret deal with MS-13 in the early years of his presidency.

New reporting on that investigation by ProPublica shows that senior officials in Bukele’s government repeatedly impeded the work of a U.S. task force as it pursued evidence of possible wrongdoing by the Salvadoran president and his inner circle.

Bukele’s allies secretly blocked extraditions of gang leaders whom U.S. agents viewed as potential witnesses to the negotiations and persecuted Salvadoran law enforcement officials who helped the task force, according to exclusive interviews with current and former U.S. and Salvadoran officials, newly obtained internal documents and court records from both countries.

In a previously unreported development, federal agents came to suspect that Bukele and members of his inner circle had diverted U.S. aid funds to the gang as part of the alleged deal to provide it with money and power in exchange for votes and reduced homicide rates. In 2021, agents drew up a request to review U.S. bank accounts held by Salvadoran political figures to look for evidence of money laundering related to the suspected diversion of U.S. funds. The list of names assembled by the agents included Bukele, senior officials and their relatives, according to documents viewed by ProPublica.

“Information obtained through investigation has revealed that the individuals contained within this submission are heavily engaged with MS-13 and are laundering funds from illicit business where MS-13 are involved,” the agents wrote. The people on the list “are also believed to have been funding MS-13 to support political campaigns and MS-13 have received political funds.”

The outcome of the request is not known, but its existence shows that the U.S. investigation had widened to examine suspected corruption at high levels of the Bukele government.

The investigation was led by Joint Task Force Vulcan, a multiagency law enforcement team created at Trump’s request in 2019. Agents found evidence that the Bukele government tried to cover up the pact by preventing the extraditions of gang leaders who faced U.S. charges that include ordering the murders of U.S. citizens and plotting to assassinate an FBI agent.

In addition, U.S. officials helped at least eight of their counterparts in Salvadoran law enforcement flee the country and resettle in the United States or elsewhere because they feared retaliation by their own government, current and former U.S. officials said.

It has been clear from the beginning what Trump wants from El Salvador: an ally who would accept, and even imprison, deportees. Less clear has been what Bukele might want from the United States. In striking the deal with the Salvadoran president, Trump has effectively undercut the Vulcan investigation and shielded Bukele from further scrutiny, current and former U.S. officials said.

Veterans of the Vulcan team are “concerned that all their work, the millions of dollars that were spent, going all over the United States, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, that it will be weakened for political reasons,” said a U.S. official familiar with the investigation.

The task force worked closely with the Salvadoran attorney general’s office, whose prosecutors shared evidence from their own investigation of the gang negotiations and suspected graft in the Bukele government, according to current and former U.S. and Salvadoran officials.

“There was good information on corruption between the gang and the Bukele administration,” Christopher Musto, a former senior official at Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI, who worked on Vulcan, said about the Salvadoran investigation. “It was a great case.”

In May 2021, Bukele’s legislative majority in Congress ousted the attorney general and justices of the Supreme Court, which oversees extradition requests. Within seven months, newly installed justices reversed or halted six requests for senior gang leaders wanted in the U.S., according to interviews and documents.

“Bukele’s people were coming to the Supreme Court and saying under no circumstances are we extraditing the MS-13 leaders,” said the U.S. official familiar with the investigation. “‘Delay, interfere, undermine, do what you have to do.’”

Senior Bukele officials helped an MS-13 leader with a pending extradition order escape from prison, according to court records, U.S. officials and Salvadoran news reports. At least three other top gang leaders were released from Salvadoran custody after the U.S. filed extradition requests for them, according to Justice Department documents.

Published accounts in the United States and El Salvador have reported allegations that Bukele also pushed for the return of MS-13 leaders to prevent them from testifying in U.S. courts about the pact. Despite his government’s refusal to extradite gang bosses to the United States, the Trump administration in March deported one MS-13 leader accused of terrorism. The Justice Department is now seeking to dismiss charges against a second leader, which would allow him to be sent back to El Salvador, according to recent court filings.

The Justice Department declined to comment in response to questions sent by ProPublica. The State Department referred questions to the Justice Department.

A White House spokesperson did not respond to detailed questions.

“President Trump is committed to keeping his promises to the American people and removing dangerous criminals and terrorist illegals who pose a threat to the American public,” said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson. “We are grateful for President Bukele’s partnership.”

Bukele, the Salvadoran Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Salvadoran Supreme Court did not respond to lists of questions. Bukele has repeatedly denied making any agreement with MS-13. The Trump administration’s deportation of MS-13 members to El Salvador, he said in a post on X, will enable security forces to dismantle the gang.

“This will help us finalize intelligence gathering and go after the last remnants of MS-13, including its former and new members, money, weapons, drugs, hideouts, collaborators, and sponsors,” the post said.

“Just Fear”

Bukele was elected president of El Salvador in February 2019, promising to fight the country’s ingrained political corruption and pervasive gang violence, which he called “one of the greatest challenges” facing the nation.

During his first term, Trump also made MS-13 a high-profile foe, calling it “probably the meanest, worst gang in the world.” In August 2019, Attorney General William P. Barr created the Vulcan task force, teaming federal prosecutors with agents of the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies. The goal: Eradicate MS-13.

For decades, MS-13 has bedeviled law enforcement in the Americas with its vast reach, extreme violence and complex culture. The initials stand for “Mara Salvatrucha.” “Mara” means a swarm, while “salvatrucha” has been said to refer to a clever Salvadoran, according to interviews and an academic study. The number represents the 13th letter of the alphabet, M, in homage to the Mexican Mafia, the powerful Southern California prison gang.

MS-13 emerged in the 1980s in Los Angeles among Salvadoran youths whose families had fled a bloody civil war. The gang expanded throughout the diaspora and, as the U.S. deported planeloads of ex-convicts starting in the 1990s, took root in El Salvador. Although most of the leaders were serving sentences in El Salvador, a jailhouse council of 14 bosses, known as the “Ranfla,” used cellphones to micromanage criminal activities in U.S. cities thousands of miles away.

The gang developed a reputation for torturing, brutalizing and dismembering its victims. Barr has called it “a death cult” in which violence is more important than riches.

“It was like a very violent mom-and-pop operation where the cousins and second cousins all want to be a part of it,” said Carlos Ortiz, who served as the HSI attaché in El Salvador from 2018 to 2024. “Minimal money, compared to others. Even though it’s an organization, a lot of it is just fear. Fear of the high-ranking bosses among the rest of the gang, that’s what drives it.”

Trained with military weapons, MS-13 warred with security forces in El Salvador, took over neighborhoods and generated one of the world’s worst homicide rates, driving an exodus of immigrants reminiscent of the 1980s. The Salvadoran Supreme Court designated the gang as a terrorist organization in 2015.

The Vulcan task force had about 30 members, including prosecutors, agents and analysts. Its director, John J. Durham, was a federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York who had spent a decade pursuing MS-13 cliques on Long Island. Members of the task force worked from bases around the country and traveled to Mexico and Central America.

One of the founding investigators, Newark FBI agent Daniel Brunner, spoke fluent Spanish and had worked gangs for seven years. He became a roving specialist providing expertise, communications intelligence and court transcripts, sometimes in person and sometimes from a distance.

“Our idea was that Vulcan was like a SEAL Team 6, going in to help the different districts build cases,” Brunner, who is now retired, said in an interview.

Vulcan built on the longtime U.S. presence and extensive influence in El Salvador, where the embassy has long funded and trained law enforcement agencies. FBI agents and others were embedded as advisers in police anti-gang and homicide units and worked with prosecution teams led by Attorney General Raúl Melara.

The U.S. task force modeled its strategy on the ones used against Mexican cartels and Colombian narcoguerrillas: Break the power of the MS-13 bosses by extraditing them to face trial and prison in the United States.

On Jan. 14, 2021, six days before the end of the Trump administration, Durham and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray joined acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen when he announced “the highest-reaching and most sweeping indictment targeting MS-13 and its command and control structure in U.S. history.”

Prosecutors charged the 14 members of the leadership council with major crimes including conspiracy to support and finance narcoterrorism. For more than two decades, the Ranfla ran a criminal network in the United States, Mexico and Central America that sanctioned the murders of Americans and trafficked drugs and arms, the indictment alleged.

The indictment contained a stunning charge: MS-13 bosses had taken the extraordinary step of giving an order, or “green light,” to assassinate an FBI agent working with local investigators in El Salvador. Embassy officials learned of the threat and evacuated the agent, according to interviews.

It is highly unusual for Latin American criminal groups to target a U.S. agent — they have learned that it invites an overwhelming law enforcement response. The assassination plot was a sign that the U.S. crackdown had rattled the gang chiefs, current and former officials said.

Vulcan on the Hunt

In conversations with American officials as president-elect, Bukele promised cooperation and welcomed their support against gangs and graft, even in his own Nuevas Ideas party, according to current and former U.S. officials.

At a press event about the Vulcan task force in 2020, Trump asserted that in the past El Salvador “did not cooperate with the United States at all,” but now it had become a strong law enforcement partner.

Already, though, there had been news accounts alleging that Bukele had cut deals with gangs when he was mayor of San Salvador. Vulcan investigators quickly found evidence that top aides to the new president were negotiating a new pact with gang chiefs, according to interviews.

For more than a decade, MS-13’s control of the streets had made it a political force. It could deliver votes, ignite mayhem or impose order. A series of politicians had held talks with gang leaders to seek electoral support and reductions in violence in return for improved prison conditions and perks such as prostitutes and big-screen televisions.

The Bukele government adopted a more sophisticated bargaining strategy, according to current and former U.S. and Salvadoran officials. During secret meetings in prisons and other sites, the president’s emissaries offered MS-13 leaders political power and financial incentives if they lowered the homicide rate and marshaled support for the Nuevas Ideas party, according to current and former U.S. and Salvadoran officials and court documents.

The chief negotiator was Carlos Marroquín, a former rap artist and confidant of the president. Bukele had appointed him the director of a new Justice Ministry program known as “Reconstruction of the Social Fabric” that operated in impoverished communities.

Marroquín promised the Ranfla a central role in developing the program, control of neighborhood youth centers, power over urban turf and other financial and political benefits, according to current and former U.S. officials, court documents and Treasury Department sanctions. Informants and communications intercepts indicated that some of the resources going to MS-13 came from U.S. government aid, a violation of U.S. law, according to interviews and documents.

“Money was going from us, from USAID, through to this social fabric group,” a former federal law enforcement official said. “They’re supposed to be building things and getting skills and learning. It was funding the gangs.”

Vulcan also gained information from two highly placed Salvadoran officials involved in the talks with MS-13. The officials provided inside information to U.S. agents about the negotiations, which they said Bukele directed, according to interviews.

The accumulating evidence about the gang pact and the suspected misuse of U.S. funds spurred the task force to broaden its initial focus and target alleged corruption in the Bukele government, current and former U.S. officials said.

In April 2021, federal agents prepared a list of powerful Salvadorans for a financial review by the U.S. Treasury Department. Bukele was one of the 15 names. So were Marroquín; Osiris Luna, the director of the national prison system and another alleged organizer of the gang talks; Martha Carolina Recinos, the president’s chief of staff; and other political figures and their relatives. The request asked the Treasury Department to search for possible illicit transactions in any bank accounts held in the United States by those on the list, according to documents seen by ProPublica.

The Vulcan task force was seeking evidence in U.S. banks of money laundering tied to the diversion of USAID funding through the gang pact, the documents showed. Agents explained that the task force had “uncovered information that MS-13 members are in close contact with politically exposed persons in El Salvador,” referring to prominent government figures.

“The USAID funding is believed to have been laundered by the individuals submitted in this request,” who were suspected of “facilitating, supporting and promoting MS-13 through their official positions,” said the request, which was viewed by ProPublica.

Made under section 314A of the USA Patriot Act, the request for a canvass of U.S. banks requires that investigators show reasonable suspicion rather than probable cause, which is a higher standard. The outcome of the request is unknown. The Treasury Department declined to comment. U.S. prosecutors have not publicly accused Bukele and the others of crimes related to USAID funds.

As U.S. investigators advanced in this political direction, they gained valuable information from the Salvadoran prosecutors who were pressing their own investigation of the gangs and the Bukele administration.

Known in English as Operation Cathedral, their probe was as ambitious and sensitive as the U.S. one. Investigators had documented the secret jailhouse deals with MS-13 and the official attempts to cover them up. They also pursued leads that revealed alleged widespread corruption involving the country’s COVID-19 relief programs, according to current and former U.S. and Salvadoran officials and documents. Political tensions increased as the Salvadoran prosecutors targeted the president’s inner circle and raided government offices, clashing with police who tried to stop them from searching the Health Ministry in one incident.

April 2021 was also when a delegation led by Attorney General Melara came to Washington to meet with leaders of Vulcan and other senior U.S. officials. The prosecutors laid out their case against prominent figures in the Bukele government. The “impressive” presentation, a former U.S. federal law enforcement official said, cited videos, phone intercepts and other evidence showing that Marroquín, prisons director Luna and others had clandestinely arranged for government negotiators and gang leaders to enter and leave prisons, smuggled in phones and destroyed logs of prison visits.

“Melara was very nervous because of the very high level of the people he was investigating,” a former U.S. federal law enforcement official said.

Melara declined to comment, saying he does not discuss his work as attorney general.

Interference

On May 1, 2021 — soon after Melara and his team met with U.S. investigators — the Salvadoran Legislature, controlled by Bukele, voted to expel the attorney general and five justices on the Supreme Court.

The purge was a decisive step by Bukele to centralize power. It drew international condemnation. In El Salvador, critics denounced the president’s actions as a “self-coup.” On his Twitter page, Bukele began calling himself “the world’s coolest dictator.”

For Vulcan, the expulsions marked a dramatic shift in its investigation. The Supreme Court justices had signaled their willingness to sign off on some extraditions. Melara had been a helpful ally who reportedly pledged to do “everything necessary” to extradite the Ranfla members, many of whom were in custody in El Salvador. But it soon became clear that the government was no longer interested in handing over senior gang leaders.

“The next prosecutors were not willing to work with us,” said Musto, the former HSI official. “We were not closed out, but all these things that we had in place that we were moving to getting people back here slowed down to a snail’s pace.”

The first clash came over Armando Melgar Diaz, an alleged MS-13 leader who acted as a middleman between gangs in the United States and senior leaders in El Salvador. Melgar, known as “Blue,” had ordered the kidnapping of a family in Oklahoma that owed the gangs $145,000, collected money from a drug ring operating out of restaurants in Maryland and Virginia and was involved with killings in the U.S., according to an indictment and interviews with U.S. officials. He was the first MS-13 member to be accused under terrorism laws.

The newly constituted Supreme Court voted to approve Melgar’s extradition but then reversed its decision, announcing that the matter needed further study. Later, Bukele’s new attorney general asked for a halt to the extradition. The reason: The United States had failed to guarantee that it would not seek the death penalty or life in prison, sentences not allowed under Salvadoran law.

The rationale made no sense to Vulcan prosecutors. The Justice Department had already promised that it would not pursue such punishments against Melgar, according to records and interviews. U.S. and Salvadoran officials attributed the sudden reversal to fear that Melgar could link Bukele and his government to the pact with MS-13.

“Melgar Diaz was going to be the test case,” Musto said. “It was going to be an easy win for Vulcan.”

Information obtained by U.S. agents included allegations that Bukele’s judicial adviser, Conan Castro-Ramírez, had called one of the new Supreme Court justices and told him to find ways to stop the extradition of Melgar, according to interviews. When the justice objected, saying that the extradition had already been approved, Castro allegedly ordered him to reverse it. “That’s why we put you there,” he said, according to the interviews.

The State Department sanctioned Castro for his role in assisting in the “inappropriate removal” of the Supreme Court justices and the attorney general. Castro did not respond to attempts to contact him.

A Salvadoran court sentenced Melgar to 39 years in prison for conspiracy to commit homicide, among other crimes. He was the first MS-13 leader whose extradition was blocked. Soon after, the U.S. extradition requests for other gang chiefs ran into opposition.

“Bukele and his government are using the entire state apparatus to prevent these people from being extradited,” a person with knowledge of the Salvadoran judicial system said in a recent interview.

Miguel Ángel Flores Durel, a newly appointed Supreme Court justice who reportedly had served as a lawyer for a top MS-13 leader, made sure that the requests were never granted, according to the person with knowledge of El Salvador’s judicial system. Flores instructed colleagues “do not work on extraditions at all,” the person said.

In July 2022, El Salvador agreed to extradite two lower-ranking MS-13 members charged with the murders of Salvadoran immigrants in Long Island in 2016 and 2017 in which victims were butchered with axes and machetes. The Supreme Court also approved the return of Salvadorans not affiliated with the gang who were accused in the U.S. of crimes such as murder.

This was a deliberate strategy, the person said. Flores said that El Salvador needed to continue some extraditions in order to “calm” U.S. officials, who were complaining about the lack of cooperation with Vulcan, the person said. (Flores died in 2023.)

It didn’t work. The extradition of other criminals by the Bukele-aligned Supreme Court only emphasized the lack of cooperation on requests for the senior MS-13 leaders.

“We were never told officially that it wouldn’t happen, but it became impossible,” said Brunner, the former FBI agent.

In October 2022, Bukele’s new attorney general announced that criminals would first have to serve their sentence in El Salvador before being sent to the U.S. — an interpretation of the country’s extradition treaty that differed from the previous Supreme Court.

“We aren’t going to be sending Salvadorans without them first paying for the crimes they have committed” in El Salvador, Rodolfo Delgado said.

Threats and Roadblocks

The Bukele government’s interference with the U.S. investigation went beyond blocking extraditions, U.S. officials said.

Senior Bukele allies also waged a campaign of harassment and intimidation against the Salvadoran officials who had investigated corruption and assisted the Vulcan task force, according to interviews with current and former U.S. and Salvadoran officials.

The government threatened officials with arrest and sent police patrols to their homes, according to current and former U.S. and Salvadoran officials. At least eight senior Salvadoran law enforcement and judicial officials fled El Salvador for the United States and elsewhere. Vulcan provided them with travel money, language classes, housing and help gaining legal immigration status and finding jobs. In one instance, a U.S. Embassy official escorted a Salvadoran prosecutor out of the country because American officials believed his life was in danger, according to an official familiar with the incident.

The Salvadoran government also weakened special “vetted units” of the police that had worked with the FBI and other U.S. agencies, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Bukele’s allies didn’t stop there. They allegedly helped the escape or release from prison of at least four members of the MS-13 leadership council sought by Vulcan for alleged crimes in the U.S., according to interviews, court documents and press reports.

Elmer Canales-Rivera, alias “Crook de Hollywood,” was one of the most wanted of the Ranfla members. He had been imprisoned for several murders in El Salvador, including a case in which he reportedly helped suffocate and drown in insecticide a gang member who violated orders. In the United States, prosecutors had accused him of orchestrating murders and kidnapping across the nation for more than 20 years.

In November 2021, Canales escaped from prison. El Faro, a prominent investigative news outlet, and other Salvadoran media published stories that detailed how Marroquín had escorted Canales from the prison. The articles featured taped calls between gang members and a person identified as Marroquín discussing his role in the escape, along with photos of officials apparently attempting to remove jail logs to conceal their presence at the prison.

Canales was caught in Mexico and turned over to U.S. authorities. Currently in prison awaiting trial, he has pleaded not guilty.

Over the next several months, three other MS-13 leaders disappeared from Salvadoran prisons, causing Durham, the head of the task force, to express his concern in a letter to the judge in New York overseeing the cases. At the time the Bukele administration had received extradition requests and Interpol notices, he wrote, the leaders had been in custody. Salvadoran media later reported that the country’s Supreme Court had formally denied the extradition requests for the three men.

The purge of the Supreme Court and prosecutors, the blocked extraditions and the disappearance of the MS-13 gang members marked a significant deterioration in relations between Bukele and the administration of President Joe Biden. Agencies across the government began looking for ways to push El Salvador to cooperate.

Acting U.S. Ambassador Jean Manes announced a “pause” in relations with El Salvador and left the country. A veteran diplomat who had previously served in El Salvador, Manes had pressured Bukele in public and private, criticizing the extradition delays and his increasingly authoritarian rule, according to State Department officials.

“What are we seeing now? It is a decline in democracy,” Manes said shortly before her departure.

In December 2021, the Treasury Department issued sanctions against Bukele aides Luna, Marroquín and Recinos, blocking them from conducting financial transactions in the United States because of alleged corruption. None of them responded to questions sent to a Bukele spokesperson.

Nonetheless, former members of the task force said they felt that the Biden administration treated Vulcan as a lower priority and cut its resources. They said Biden officials saw the task force as a Trump initiative and wanted to focus on other law enforcement targets, such as human trafficking.

“As soon as the Biden administration came in, we were slowed down,” Brunner said. “There was a lot more red tape we had to go through.” Former Biden officials denied this was the case.

Whatever truce had existed between the Salvadoran government and MS-13 collapsed in March 2022. The country descended into chaos. Over one three-day period, some 80 people were killed in gang-related violence.

Bukele reacted forcefully. He declared a nationwide “state of exception” that suspended constitutional protections. Police began rounding up thousands of accused gang members and others. He announced the construction of the megaprison known as CECOT.

The policies proved tremendously popular. Murder rates dropped dramatically, though human rights advocates criticized the loss of civil liberties. Bukele dismissed their complaints.

“Some say we have put thousands in prison, but the reality is that we have set millions free,” he has said, an assertion he repeated to Trump in the Oval Office.

The Turnaround

Despite the harsh treatment of gang members — an estimated 14,500 people are now held in CECOT — one thing did not change: The Bukele government continued to refuse to extradite senior MS-13 leaders to the United States.

The reasons for Bukele’s alleged protection of the gang leadership versus his relentless pursuit of the rank and file are the subject of speculation in both the United States and El Salvador. One possible explanation, according to current and former U.S. and Salvadoran officials: Bukele is aware that Vulcan was gathering evidence that could lead to criminal charges and political damage. The imprisoned leaders are potential witnesses to his alleged deal with MS-13, while El Salvador’s street-level gangsters are not.

In February 2023, the Justice Department unsealed an indictment for another group of leaders, most of whom operated a tier below the Ranfla, relaying its directives to gangsters on the streets. The 13 defendants were accused of terrorism and drug smuggling, among other charges.

The U.S. announced it would “explore options for their extradition with the government of El Salvador.” The Justice Department declined to say whether any such requests had been made.

In filing the charges, prosecutors made their strongest public accusations yet about deals between the Bukele government and the gangs. Without naming the president or his allies, prosecutors alleged that MS-13 leaders agreed to use their vast political influence to turn out votes for candidates belonging to Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas party in legislative elections in 2021.

The gang bosses also “agreed to reduce the number of public murders in El Salvador, which politically benefited the government of El Salvador, by creating the perception that the government was reducing the murder rate,” the indictment said.

As part of the arrangement, the senior MS-13 leaders demanded that the Bukele government refuse to extradite them, the indictment said. The alleged condition appears to be in effect. To date, none of the extradition requests for more than a dozen high-ranking gang members has been approved.

In the face of obstacles, Vulcan relied increasingly on the Mexican government for help. During the past four years, Mexican authorities have captured nine of the 27 MS-13 leaders named in the indictments and deported them to the United States, where they were arrested. This year, prosecutors obtained guilty pleas to terrorism charges from two lower-ranking bosses, including one who prosecutors said had helped implement the deal between the Bukele administration and the gang. Sentencing for the men is pending.

Since Trump took office this year, his administration has redirected Vulcan’s mission to also target Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that the president has put in the spotlight.

There has been a remarkable recent development related to MS-13, however. After more than five years leading the Vulcan task force, Durham wrote letters asking the judge overseeing the cases to dismiss charges against two gang leaders in U.S. custody, allowing them to be deported to El Salvador. The letters were dated March 11 and April 1, weeks after the Trump administration began negotiating the mass deportation deal with Bukele’s government.

César Humberto López Larios, a member of the Ranfla known as “Greñas,” had his charges dismissed and was returned to El Salvador with more than 250 Venezuelans and Salvadorans sent to CECOT as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation of migrants on March 15. López, identified in media reports, is featured in a slickly produced video posted by Bukele on X, kneeling in the prison, his head shaved. He had pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

Then, in April, Durham asked for the dismissal of terrorism charges against a lower-ranking MS-13 prisoner, Vladimir Antonio Arevalo-Chavez, alias “Vampiro,” according to recently unsealed court records. His defense lawyers are seeking to stall the request to give them time to fight his deportation to El Salvador. He has pleaded not guilty.

Durham acknowledged in his letters to the judge that the evidence against the two men is “strong.” After millions spent on an operation involving investigators and prosecutors from the U.S., El Salvador and other countries, Vulcan had amassed a trove of evidence aimed at incarcerating the MS-13 leaders who had overseen the killings, rapes and beatings of Americans. Prosecutors told defense attorneys they had more than 92,903 pages of discovery, including 600 pages of transcribed phone intercepts, 21 boxes of documents from prosecutors in El Salvador and 11 gigabytes of audio files.

Durham said prosecutors were dropping their pursuit of the cases “due to geopolitical and national security concerns.”

It was like a reverse extradition. Trump was giving Bukele the kind of high-level criminals that the United States had never received from El Salvador.

During the negotiations over the use of El Salvador’s prison, Trump officials agreed to pay some $6 million to house the deported men and acceded to an additional demand.

Bukele had one specific request, according to Milena Mayorga, his ambassador to the United States.

“I want you to send me the gang leaders who are in the United States,” she quoted Bukele as telling U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

For Bukele, she said in abroadcast interview, it was “a matter of honor.”

Mica Rosenberg contributed reporting, and Doris Burke contributed research.

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AHA YIKES METAPHOR AS LEGAL JUSTIFICATION EMERGENCY STATE OF EXCEPTION INSURRECTION ACT // TREN DE ARAGUA

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U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem reportedly requested that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth grant law enforcement powers—including the authority to detain and arrest—to the thousands of military troops President Donald Trump deployed to Los Angeles to suppress anti-deportation protests. Such powers are typically barred under federal law, and experts warn the move marks another step toward the administration invoking the Insurrection Act.

In a memo, Secretary Noem alleged protestors included "invasive, violent, insurrectionist mobs that seek to protect invaders and military aged males belonging to identified foreign terrorist organizations, and who seek to prevent the deportation of criminal aliens,” as the San Francisco Chronicle first reported.

"The military is generally barred under federal laws from taking part in domestic law enforcement. Noem’s request may be a step toward the administration sidestepping those laws by invoking the Insurrection Act, two legal experts said in interviews," the Chronicle added.

RELATED: ‘Looking for an Excuse’: Trump Under Fire for Violent Slogan as He Sends Marines to LA

Syracuse University Professor of Law Emeritus William Banks told the Chronicle that Noem's move is "a grave escalation" that "may presage the invocation of the Insurrection Act.” Professor Banks is an internationally recognized scholar on constitutional law, national security and counterterrorism law, as well as emergency powers and government surveillance and privacy, according to his biography.

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Secretary Noem also requested “drone surveillance support” and weapons and logistics assistance. President Donald Trump has ordered 700 U.S. Marines and federalized up to 4,000 National Guard troops to go to Los Angeles to help tamp down the protests.

The Associated Press on Monday suggested the protest area itself was small: “Protests over the president’s immigration crackdown spared much of Los Angeles from violence. Weekend clashes swept through several downtown blocks and a handful of other places.”

Other experts weighed in as well.

READ MORE: House Republicans Quietly Slip Anti-LGBTQ ‘Religious Freedom’ Clause Into Funding Bill

Vermont Law and Graduate School professor emeritus Stephen Dycus, an expert in national security law and the Insurrection Act, told the Chronicle that "this could be viewed as a preparation for invoking the Insurrection Act, or it could be viewed as part of a larger effort to frighten people who otherwise would exercise their first amendment guarantee of free speech and protest.”

California Democratic state Senator Tom Umberg, a retired Army colonel and JAG officer, "said he found the letter’s requests alarming."

“It looks like a preparation for a military assault,” Umberg said. “This looks like a subterfuge to create some sort of rationale for some sort of invocation of the Insurrection Act.”

Attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an immigration expert and senior fellow at the American Immigration Council explained that the "reason that there is civil unrest in multiple cities throughout the country is because the Trump administration ordered ICE to engage in near-indiscriminate arrests, rounding up otherwise law-abiding people with no criminal records."

Political scientist Dr. Norman Ornstein, a contributing editor for the Atlantic, wrote, "this is a prelude to invoking the insurrection act and declaring martial law."

READ MORE: ‘Completely Obliterated’: Trump Claims LA Saved From Ruin by His National Guard Action

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an internationally acclaimed digital news outlet in El Salvador said Monday that the administration of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele is preparing to arrest a number of its journalists following the publication of an interview with two former gang leaders who shed new light on a power-sharing agreement with the U.S.-backed leader and self-described "world's coolest dictator."

"A reliable source in El Salvador told El Faro that the Bukele-controlled Attorney General's Office is preparing at least seven arrest warrants for members of El Faro," the outlet reported. "The source reached out following the publication of an interview with two former leaders of the 18th Street Revolucionarios on Bukele's yearslong relationship to gangs."

"If carried out, the warrants are the first time in decades that prosecutors seek to press charges against individual journalists for their journalistic labors," El Faro added.

Bukele responded to the interview in a Friday evening post on the social media site X that read in part, "It's clear that a country at peace, without deaths, without extortion, without bloodshed, without corpses every day, without mothers mourning their children, is not profitable for human rights NGOs, nor for the globalist media, nor for the elites, nor for [George] Soros."

While the pact between Bukele and gang leaders is well-known in El Salvador, El Faro—which has long been a thorn in the president's side—was the first media outlet to air video of gangsters acknowledging the agreement.

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As El Faro reported:

At the heart of the threat of arrests is irony: El Faro was only able to interview the two Revolucionarios because they escaped El Salvador with the complicity of Bukele. One, who goes by "Liro Man," recounts that he was taken to Guatemala, through a blind spot in the Salvadoran border, by Bukele gang negotiator Carlos Marroquín; the other, Carlos Cartagena, or "Charli," was arrested on a warrant in April 2022, early in the state of exception, but quickly released after the police received a call at the station and backed off.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Salvadorans were being rounded up without due process, on charges of belonging to gangs.

The video interview explains the dichotomy: For years, Salvadoran gang leaders cut covert deals with the entourage of Nayib Bukele. In their interview with El Faro, the two Revolucionarios say the FMLN party, to which the now-president belonged a decade ago, paid a quarter of a million dollars to the gangs during the 2014 campaign in exchange for vote coercion in gang-controlled communities, on behalf of Bukele for San Salvador mayor and Salvador Sánchez Cerén as president.

"This support, the sources say, was key to Bukele's ascent to power," El Faro noted. "'You're going to tell your mom and your wife's family that they have to vote for Nayib. If you don't do it, we'll kill them,' Liro Man says the gang members told their communities in that election. Of Bukele, he added, 'he knew he had to get to the gangs in order to get to where he is.'"

Part of the deal was a tacit "no body, no crime" policy under which gang leaders agreed to hide their victims' corpses as Bukele boasted of a historic reduction in homicides in a country once known as the world's murder capital.

"We've wanted to talk about this for a long time, for the simple reason that the government beats their chests and says, 'We're anti-gang, we don't want this scourge,'" Liro Man told El Faro. "But they forgot that they made a deal with us, and you were the first to get this out."

In an ironic twist, the Trump administration deported gang members from the U.S. to El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center prison who faced federal indictments that could have resulted in their testifying in court about the pact with Bukele.

Responding to the possible arrest warrants for El Faro staffers, Argentinian journalist Eliezer Budasoff said on social media Sunday that "it's clear" that El Salvador's leader "wants to silence" the outlet "because they're shattering the myths of the Bukele administration, simply with more journalism."

The Bukele administration's attacks on El Faro include falsely accusing the outlet of money laundering and tax evasion, banning its reporters from press briefings, and surveilling its staffers with Pegasus spyware. El Faro has remained steadfast in the face of these and other actions.

"Every citizen must decide for themselves whether they want to be informed, or whether they prefer the blind loyalty this administration has demanded of its supporters since its first day in power," the outlet's editors wrote in 2022. "We don't have that choice. Our job is to report. We can't change the news, and we never will."

NOW READ:There's a 'deeper problem' behind Trump's plan to fire top generals: expert

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Effects and Results

At the end of March 2022, Salvadoran security forces announced that they had arrested 576 gang members; since the declaration of the state of exception, more than 83,000 individuals linked to gang structures have been arrested, including gang leaders.[10]

As of December 9, 2024, the Bukele government has totaled 776 non-consecutive days without homicides.[11][12]

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  1. Arias, Diana (6 December 2024). "Régimen de excepción seguirá garantizando la seguridad pública". El Salvador. Diario El Salvador.
  2. Infobae, Por Newsroom (2024-09-13). "El Gobierno de El Salvador anuncia que el país suma 700 días no consecutivos sin homicidios". infobae (in European Spanish). Retrieved 2024-12-09. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  3. "Diciembre sigue sin registrar homicidios en todo el país". Diario La Página (in Spanish). 2024-12-09. Retrieved 2024-12-09.

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › State_of_Exception_in_El_Salvador

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Rachel Walden, Republican candidate for the Arizona Corporation Commission, has repeatedly expressed belief in far right conspiracy theories, including making false claims about climate change, COVID vaccines, and that “MS-13 gang was a creation of the CIA.”

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September 10, 2024, Newsmax broadcast

BETSY MCCAUGHEY (GUEST): The biggest lie tonight was her attempt to accuse Donald Trump of being a racist when she has a track record of being a racist against whites. And let me just give you a couple of examples. This down payment -- $25,000 down payment that she says she wants to help first time homebuyers -- if you actually look at the bill, it's called the Down Payment Toward Equity Act. It's already in Congress, right? She's been pushing it since 2019. It's not for white homebuyers. To get the full amount, it says right in the bill you must be African American, Asian American, Hispanic American. You cannot be --

MERCEDES SCHLAPP (HOST): Or Venezuelan gang members at this point, right.

MCCAUGHEY: Right. You have to be a minority. And since her first time in office, she has done that. Equity has been her major point. Equity is the opposite of equality. It's treating people differently, right? The American Rescue Act, Biden-Harris gave debt relief to Black farmers, section 104, not white farmers. Gave -- it gave relief to restaurant owners, but only minorities and women. So I would say to white men watching this show, don't be fooled by Kamala Harris. You will be at the back of the line.

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tomi swaps in venezuela

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During the June 27 CNN presidential election debate between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, Trump made false and misleading claims about immigration and migrants seemingly drawn straight from the right-wing media echo chambers.

Trump falsely claimed that Biden “wants open borders” and “wants our country to … be destroyed,” as migrants are supposedly violent criminals stealing American jobs. He also pushed the “great replacement” theory, saying Biden wants to import migrants to vote Democratic.

Below are some of Trump’s debate claims and recent instances of right-wing media making the same points.

Claim: Migrants are stealing jobs from Americans

In the debate, Trump claimed that migrants “are taking Black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs. And you haven’t seen it yet.” The New York Times, [6/27/24]|}:

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https://www.alternet.org/human-rights-activists-sound-the-alarm-as-el-salvador-battles-its-gang-crisis/

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El Salvador

Carlson has also interviewed Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on his Fox News show. Carlson focused on Bukele’s promise to curb gang violence in the country by increasing police funding and military presence while also applauding Bukele’s conservative stances and pushing for similar policies in the U.S.

Bukele claimed his solution for MS-13 gang violence is to “give more funds to the police, apply tougher dynamics, get the criminals, and put them in jail” and compared El Salvador’s crime rates to those of popular Fox News target Chicago, saying under his new tactics, crime in the country has fallen below that of the city.

Carlson applauded Bukele’s efforts and called the supposed solution to crime rates “obvious.”

In the past, Carlson has repeatedly referenced MS-13 when fearmongering about supposed white replacement and immigration in the U.S.; most well-known was his claim that Biden would release gang members into U.S. neighborhoods. Carlson also defended Trump when he made comments about immigration from “shithole countries,” even suggesting that El Salvador was indeed a “shithole country” or it wouldn't need immigration protections.

Carlson focused his interview with Bukele on his response to gang violence in El Salvador, praising him for cracking down through police and military power. However, Bukele policies has resulted in human rights violations in many of El Salvador’s jails including torture and death of prisoners, according to Amnesty International.

According to the Journal of Democracy, Bukele’s measures to limit judiciary independence following his rise to power in 2019 were a “serious blow to Salvadoran democracy” and his actions include “classic authoritarian behavior.” He claimed electoral authorities and the media were part of a voting fraud conspiracy during the 2021 election despite his party winning a legislative supermajority. As a candidate, Bukele avoided public debates and press interviews during the campaign, which left many to believe he was “intolerant.”

Since his election, Bukele has used the country’s military to bully opposition into voting for his budget and disbanded an anti-corruption body. Bukele has used his supermajority power to consolidate his power, firing high level judges and the attorney general. After his attacks on the judicial system, the top court in the country announced sitting presidents will be able to run again, even though El Salvador’s constitution states otherwise.

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deport ms 13

https://theintercept.com/2020/10/09/amy-coney-barrett-immigration/

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enemy them foreigner caravan // antifa as bogeyman?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trump-has-no-grand-strategy-and-hes-going-all-in-with-losers/

ms 13

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/bill-barr-had-deep-links-to-the-origins-of-central-american-migration-crisis-long-before-trump/

...

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Roberto, you begin the book talking about a tour you were giving in 1992 in Los Angeles at the time you were working with the immigrant rights group CARECEN in Los Angeles. And you’re touring around a foundation program officer, one of these people who decides whether to give money to worthy organizations. And you had very mixed feelings taking him around the Pico-Union area of Los Angeles. There’s a sudden shootout at one point. Could you talk about that whole part of your work with CARECEN? Also, what lessons might be drawn for a lot of activists today, Black Lives Matter activists and prison reform activists, who are suddenly being courted by foundations who suddenly have discovered that they haven’t been properly funding antiracism programs around the country?

ROBERTO LOVATO: That’s a great question, Juan. Yeah, the opening, the introduction of the book, is 1992, right after the L.A. riots had hit. We had foundations and corporations come in, along with scholars, and it was just people interested in post-riot L.A. And we were in MacArthur Park touring, like we did. I felt like — and I say at one point I felt like, you know, I was getting tired of being like Virgil to these Dantes, you know, these aspiring Dantes wanting to see the underworld. And so, I’m showing this guy, Leland, MacArthur Park,when I’m approached by the first MS-13 member I ever met, this kid named José. And, you know, we were — and I could tell that Leland was scared out of his wits, like he was in a lion’s den or something, and he was looking to me for security.

And so, I open it that way because it shows kind of the way that the whole issue of youth and urban youth and gangs, even foundations and corporations will kind of shy away from, as do legislators, including legislators of color here in California, where the gangs were born, in fact, where MS-13 and 18th Street were born. And then, after they were born, they kind of adopted the structures of like the Mexican Mafia. And so, I’m there when this is starting to escalate and get more violent.

And then, Attorney General William Barr, again, and at the avatar, from the Bush administration, who’s now in the Trump administration, deployed all these FBI resources to L.A. and other cities to start the gang war, which, you know, we see the products as we speak, right? And so, then he also introduced the INS to then join the LAPD and law enforcement to deport the “problem,” the gang structures, to El Salvador.

...

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, William Barr, the current attorney general, the attorney general under George H.W. Bush — we just have a minute, but as you wrap up, Roberto, what is his connection to this story?

ROBERTO LOVATO: William Barr, as attorney general under the first Bush, redeployed FBI resources, in the greatest deployment of FBI resources up to that point, taking FBI agents who were fighting foreign — you know, looking at foreign “threats,” and started focusing them on gangs. And then he starts looking at MS-13 and other gangs right after the L.A. riots. You can see he was there in L.A., and he started us on the path to eventually, like, militarizing the police, that we have right now. And then, he then also had the INS deport the gang “problem” to El Salvador, and then he exported, after the war, U.S.-style policing. And then, I found out that military trainers from El Salvador actually came to train LAPDin counterinsurgency, and other police forces. It’s just when you start seeing the Robocopization of cop uniforms— right? — and that we have now. And William Barr had everything to do with — had not everything, but he had a lot to do with this. I had to sing his song, because he deserves all the credit he deserves for what he did to El Salvador and to L.A. and to our national situation long before Trump....

==

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/507516-ms-13-member-charged-with-terrorism-related-offenses-for-first-time

beavers

Trump administration on Wednesday announced that a U.S. operation has successfully led to the arrest of multiple MS-13 leaders as well as the first time one of its gang members has been charged for terrorism-related offenses.

President Trump, Attorney General William Barr and other law enforcement officials in a press conference shared that Project Vulcan led to dozens of arrests, including 13 in Nevada and eight in New York.

"We just concluded a historic operation leading to the indictment and arrest of dozens of savage MS-13 leaders," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, describing the operation's success as part of his "all out campaign to destroy MS-13."

"This is probably the meanest, worst gang anywhere in the world, the MS-13 group. ... And a big dent was put in them, took place over the last few days and really over the last year," Trump said.

One key leader nabbed in the operation is Melgar Diaz, who was charged in the Eastern District of Virginia with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and commit acts of terrorism.

"This is the first time we've used terrorism-related charges against a member of MS-13," Barr said.

Barr noted that Diaz was responsible for illegal activities in 13 states and that he also "green-lighted" assassinations.

Other members arrested in the operation are facing multiple charges including racketeering related offenses, charges related to multiple murders and attempted murders, kidnapping, narcotics and weapons charges.

Barr also announced his decision to seek the death penalty against MS-13 member Alexi Saenz, who was indicted in 2017 in the Eastern District of New York.

The government alleges that he committed seven murders between 2016 and 2017, including the high-profile deaths of two Brentwood high school students, best friends Nisa Mickens and Kayla Cuevas, who were killed with a machete and baseball bat in 2016.

"The person we are seeking a death penalty against was involved in those murders as well as two African Americans who they saw on the street and thought were from a rival gang and just butchered," Barr said.

The president's top cop said the gang, which is based out of Central America, has historically crossed the U.S. border heading toward Houston before fanning out across the country.

Barr noted that while MS-13 has increasingly become involved in both human and narcotics trafficking, he said they are not driven by commercial interests; rather, they are focused on building the reputation of being the most savage on the street.

"It is about the honor of being the most savage, blood-thirsty person you can be and building up a reputation as a killer," Barr said, calling them a "death cult.”

The U.S. government, Barr said, is working with other countries including Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala to help fight and destroy the gang. Barr noted in particular that U.S. law enforcement is working "very closely" with the El Salvadorians on this matter.

Trump in the press conference also highlighted that he directed the Justice Department to go to war against MS-13 early into his administration, in which he signed an executive order to establish a multiagency effort to dismantle transnational criminal organizations like MS-13.

"They are sick, deranged and we are taking care of it," the president said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/ms-13-is-taking-over-the-school-one-teen-warned-before-she-was-killed/2018/03/09/93ed7c9c-2083-11e8-86f6-54bfff693d2b_story.html

wapo

MS-13 is ‘taking over the school,’ one teen warned before she was killed

Elizabeth Alvarado and Rob Mickens, parents of slain Brentwood High student Nisa Mickens, are still mourning their daughter at their home in Brentwood, N.Y.

Elizabeth Alvarado and Rob Mickens, parents of slain Brentwood High student Nisa Mickens, are still mourning their daughter at their home in Brentwood, N.Y. (Michael Noble Jr. for The Washington Post)

By

Michael E. Miller

March 9, 2018

BRENTWOOD, N.Y. — The old minivan appeared near the school on a Tuesday morning, its Illinois plates the only thing out of place in the blue-collar suburbs of central Long Island. But as backpack-toting teenagers passed by on their way to Brentwood High, the van’s doors suddenly swung open.

Out sprang members of the violent street gang MS-13, armed with baseball bats...

ap 2017

cENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) — Federal prosecutors said Thursday they had captured the members of a violent street gang who killed three high school students, including two girls who were inseparable best friends and were attacked with a machete and baseball bats as they walked through their suburban neighborhood.

Thirteen members of local cliques of the MS-13 street gang were charged with a slew of violent crimes and seven killings over a five-year period, prosecutors and police said.

Among the dead: Brentwood High School students Nisa Mickens, 15, and Kayla Cuevas, 16, who were ambushed by a carload of other teens on Sept. 13, and their former schoolmate Jose Pena-Hernandez, 18, whose corpse was found on the grounds of an abandoned state psychiatric hospital following his disappearance in June.

The killings came amid a national conversation about illegal immigration, and prosecutors revealed 10 of the 13 indicted people were citizens of El Salvador or Honduras who were in the U.S. illegally, including most of the people directly implicated in the killings.

Last December, Donald Trump referenced the slayings in Brentwood during a profile for his Time magazine Person of the Year award after being elected president.

Two other killings of Brentwood youths, ages 15 and 19, whose bodies were discovered last year in secluded spots in the hamlet, remain unsolved.

Gang violence has been a problem in Brentwood and some surrounding Long Island communities for more than a decade, but Suffolk County police and the FBI began pouring resources into a crackdown after the killings of the high school girls sparked outrage.

“While violence and brutality are trademarks of the MS-13 gang, the murders of these three teens are particularly disturbing,” U.S. Attorney Robert Capers said in announcing the indictment Thursday.

Kayla was targeted last summer by a group of four gang members, including two juveniles, because she had been feuding with MS-13 members at school and on social media. The posse, which had been roving in a car looking for gang enemies, attacked it they came across her walking with Nisa in the street.

Nisa “was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time, hanging out with her childhood friend,” Capers said.

Nisa’s father, Robert Mickens, said he felt blessed that police had made arrests.

“I’ve got some type of closure even though my daughter is not back,” he said. “It’s closure to my family.”

Kayla’s mother, Evelyn Rodriguez, said after an initial court appearance for some of the defendants that she was glad authorities had identified her daughter’s killers, “but it is also a sad day.”

“They’ll be judged ... twice,” she said of the suspects, who could face the death penalty if convicted.

Pena-Hernandez was a MS-13 gang member who was lured to a wooded area by fellow gang members he thought were his friends, Capers said. Those friends turned on him and repeatedly stabbed him to death, he said.

His death had gone largely publicly unmarked until police began discovering corpses in the weeks after Kayla and Nisa died.

The indictment superseded one filed against five men last year, accusing them of the fatal shootings of two men in Central Islip in 2013, the killing of a man in Brentwood in 2014 and the slaying of a 16-year-old boy in Central Islip in 2015.

The gang, also called Mara Salvatrucha, is believed to have been founded as a neighborhood street gang in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s by immigrants fleeing a civil war in El Salvador. It grew after some members were deported to El Salvador, helping to turn that country into one of the most violent places in the world. It’s now a major international criminal enterprise with tens of thousands of members in several Central American countries and many U.S. states.

One of the Republican president’s priorities is a crackdown on immigrants who are in the country illegally and have committed crimes. He promised as much in his Time interview, referencing a Newsday story about the killings.

“They come from Central America. They’re tougher than any people you’ve ever met,” he said. “They’re killing and raping everybody out there. They’re illegal. And they are finished.”

omfg

https://twitter.com/LouDobbs/status/1283531243548741635

portland secret police

ms 13 barbarian jul 15 dobbs miller interview finally declared terrorists

==

Stephen miller lou dobbs

:{_https://video.foxbusiness.com/v/6171909446001/#sp=show-clips:(style="background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration-skip-ink:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"):}:_

Op Vulcan

sr pol advisor

good strong  begin to see good strong pos results on that focus, continue?  congrats

congrats on ms 13 op, one of the largest  jul 15 largest soulless barbarians hacked to death 2 girls in NY, now facing death penalty, 1st time ever int'l terrorism, a contrast taking out criminal gangs and terrorists w/ rec speed force and focus record focus liberal mayor, crazy mayor lawless mayhem un radical left, unleash violence and mayhem, public safety that's the choice; 

Dobbs:  it is a stark choice no more emblematic than portland  wheeler pristine city being savaged antifa, BLM and other activists and street criminals 6 straight weeks nowhere else cits do not want to ruffle feather and get that major out of town, nowhere else, at least take  night off

i suspect strong and growing silent majority in this cty  ready to clear house of leftist mayors

silent tortuous violence electoral wave crash over  of defund police, abolish law enforcement, force sanctuary  cities down the throats, appoint social just prosecutors who won't even enforce the law; choice never more clear, even tho lib mayors refuse request, refuse our generous hands, we will make major announcement next week prez use authority of fed gov't to come to rescue of long-suffering cits ; to rescue, 

lou: if citizens do not req, accept violence at the level they are you and i know how it will be painted, fed, crush city despite disavowal

mom and dad and cits of all walks of life  manhattan, chicago, atlanta ...they support police, they feds to fullest extent  ,want gang members behind bars, killers, murderer, support for robust federal support, keep city, family community  safe;  right to walk w/o stray bullet, put kids to sleep at night w/o worry homes broken into or windows smashed; social justice prosecutors will make much more diff, but this prez will never waver in his duty to protect the am ppl; 

dobbs: isn't role for DOJ NYc mayor De Blasio cognit diss/ [nery unwell" ] , trash city every day, strips police of billion $, throw citizens to wolves; anti-crime unit disbanded by socialist mayor, 

SM: I assure you DOJ ...safety, peace and order in our city. Every day thousands  ICE ...every day go to work, put dangerous criminals behind bars reduced crime for the 1st time for lowest level decades, did by fed law, [guns offenders, felons carrying weapons behind bars] put X in jail

Sanct cities releasing violent criminals get them off street and we will get them back home = jail

Let’s never forget Obama /Biden for 8 straight years unimpeded, let MS 13 in,unleashed on our communities,  never apologized to families..schools, senseless violence , not Pol/part issue, ___normal good ppl], ppl have to live in fear of violence

Dobbs: why not DOJ investigate o BLM not nonprofit  501c4 get $ directly from Dems party gets tax deductible $ ]= tax $, drivers it back to BLM} he dodges question no time to make speech 

we will not allow radical marxist orgs deprive Ams bl white, liberal be they POC of rights to be safe

Dobbs: Marxist lives matter  , you’d think they’d motto

==

==

operation vulcan MS-13 2 two murder New York= srch

ms 13 ANimals busted...

 2020 | 2:28pm | Updated July 15, 2020 | 4:02pm ... Operation Vulcan netted 15 MS-13 suspects in Las Vegas, and the Justice Department filed ... were nabbed in different states — with six murders, two attempted murders and kidnapping and ... Gangbangers busted for NYC murders, including subway execution ...

MS-13 Gang Members Indicted For Six Murders On Long Island

www.dea.gov › press-releases › 2020/07/15 › ms-13-ga...

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1.

:{4 days ago - Sosa-Guevara and Torres allegedly were the :{New York:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: leaders of the ... :{Two:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: additional :{MS:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:-:{13:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: members, both of whom were juveniles at the time ... Joint Task Force :{Vulcan's operations:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: have significantly degraded :{MS:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:-:{13's:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: capabilities. ... Another victim, identified in the indictment as John Doe #:{2:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, was shot ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

The Department of Justice Announces Takedown of Key MS ...

www.justice.gov › ... › Office of Public Affairs › News

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1.

:{4 days ago - Joint Task Force :{Vulcan's operations:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: have significantly degraded :{MS:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:-:{13:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: capabilities. ... “:{MS:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:-:{13:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: is a violent transnational criminal organization, whose criminal ... Alexi Saenz was indicted in 2017 in the Eastern District of :{New York:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. ... related to six :{murders:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, :{two:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: attempted :{murders:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, kidnapping, narcotics, and ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Missing: 2 ‎| Must include:2

Trump Administration Announces MS-13 Gang Arrests | Voice ...

www.voanews.com › usa › trump-administration-annou...

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1.

:{4 days ago - VOA Newscasts (:{2:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: Minute) thumbnail ... The :{Vulcan operation:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: nabbed key figures within the organization and resulted in ... In :{New York:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: and Las Vegas, 21 :{MS:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:-:{13:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: members, including leaders of the ... Saenz was indicted in 2017 on seven :{murder:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: charges, including :{killing two:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: Brentwood, :{New York:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, high ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Long Island MS-13 Members Accused Of 6 Killings | Freeport ...

patch.com › new-york › freeport › alleged-li-ms-13-me...

:{:(style="border-color:#70757a;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-3px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

1.

:{4 days ago - LONG ISLAND, :{NY:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: — Eight accused members of the :{MS:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:-:{13:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: gang on ... are members of :{two:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: "cliques" of :{MS:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:-:{13 operating:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: on Long Island: the ... Joint Task Force :{Vulcan's operations:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: have significantly degraded :{MS:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:-:{13's:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: capabilities. ... The main charges against the group stem from a series of :{murders:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: that ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Alleged MS-13 gang member in Salisbury arrested in national ...

www.salisburypost.com › 2020/07/16 › alleged-ms-13-...

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1.

:{3 days ago - SALISBURY — :{Two:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: men who are members of multinational crime ... The eight men are confirmed members and associates of :{MS:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:-:{13:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, the court documents said. ... had been made in Joint Task Force :{Vulcan:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: (JTFV), an initiative launched in ... :{NY:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, under the guise of smoking marijuana and :{killed:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: by :{MS:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:-:{13:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Eight MS-13 members indicted for six LI murders | Herald ...

www.liherald.com › stories › eight-ms-13-members-ind...

:{:(style="border-color:#70757a;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-3px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

1.

:{2 days ago - :{Two:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: additional :{MS:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:-:{13:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: members, both of who were juveniles at the ... District of :{New York:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: to dismantle :{MS:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:-:{13's:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: activities on Long Island. ... “[The] Joint Task Force :{Vulcan's operations:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: have significantly degraded :{MS:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:-:{13's:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: ... 2020, Richner Communications · :{2:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: Endo Blvd · Garden City, :{NY:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: · (516) 569-4000.:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

MS-13 member charged with terrorism-related offenses for first ...

thehill.com › policy › national-security › 507516-ms-1...

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1.

:{4 days ago - "We just concluded a historic :{operation:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: leading to the indictment and arrest of ... Alexi Saenz, who was indicted in 2017 in the Eastern District of :{New York:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. ... was involved in those :{murders:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: as well as :{two:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: African Americans who they ... Barr noted that while :{MS:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:-:{13:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: has increasingly become involved in both ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

MS-13 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org › wiki › MS-13

:{:(style="border-color:#70757a;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-3px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

2.

:{Mara Salvatrucha, commonly known as :{MS:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:-:{13:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, is an international criminal gang that originated ... In 2016, one in 5,000 Salvadoran women were :{killed:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. ... In an interview with Bill Ritter in late 2017, Nassau County, :{New York:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: District ... a structured network of :{MS:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:-:{13 operations:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: in New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, Texas, from ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Bill Barr seeks death penalty for MS-13 murderer Alexi Saenz ...

www.dailymail.co.uk › news › article-8526667 › Feds-...

:{:(style="border-color:#70757a;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-3px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

1.

:{4 days ago - ... federal death penalty for alleged :{MS:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:-:{13 murderer:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: of :{two New York:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: teenage ... and reporters through what 'Joint Task Force :{Vulcan:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:' has been up to, the group ... is involved in human and narcotics trafficking to finance the :{operation:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. ... :{2:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, and Croia, 10 months, during family holiday in the South of France ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

===

booktv 220

:{:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:#ffffff;"):}:William Wheeler, "State of War"Journalist William Wheeler talked about the rise and spread of MS-13, a…

an 220

deported to death: US sent 138 Salvadorans home to be killed

The Conversation

by Mneesha Gellman, Emerson College At least 138 people deported from the United States to El Salvador since 2013 have been killed, according to a new report by Human Right

no lnx

Deported to death: US sent 138 Salvadorans home to be killed

President Donald J. Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019, at the InterContinental New York Barclay in New York City. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

Written by The Conversation February 7, 2020

by Mneesha Gellman, Emerson College

At least 138 people deported from the United States to El Salvador since 2013 have been killed, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch, which investigates human rights abuses worldwide.

The 117-page report also says researchers identified at least 70 deportees who were sexually assaulted, tortured or kidnapped. Many victims were asylum-seekers attacked or killed by the gangs they originally fled.

The findings show that “the U.S. is repeatedly violating its obligations to protect Salvadorans from return to serious risk of harm,” Human Rights Watch says.

The group used court records, police reports, interviews with victims and their families and news articles to document the fates of deportees. It is the first systematic effort to find out what happened to Salvadorans whose asylum claims were rejected in U.S. immigration courts because they failed to demonstrate “credible fear” of violence in El Salvador.

International asylum laws created after the Holocaust require countries to take in people who are persecuted for their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.

El Salvador has one of the world’s highest homicide rates. It is one of the main sources of migration to the U.S.

As part of its immigration crackdown, the Trump administration in September signed an agreement with El Salvador requiring the Central American country to keep asylum seekers there while they await the results of their asylum claims.

But the murders of 138 deportees belie any notion that El Salvador can protect citizens who are under threat.

Roots of impunity

Roughly the size of New Jersey, El Salvador is densely populated and highly connected by cellphone service and social media. The vulnerable groups protected under international asylum law cannot easily go under the radar or relocate if targeted by gangs, corrupt police or domestic abusers.

Hundreds of Salvadorans are killed every month. Murders, disappearances and tortures almost always go unsolved in El Salvador. Criminals, especially those with access to power, are rarely punished for their wrongdoing.

I have documented this culture of impunity across Central America and Mexico, focusing on the indigenous people, women and political dissidents who are so often victims of political violence.

This violence dates back centuries, to Spain’s bloody conquest of the Americas. As in the U.S., colonial-era brutality has lasting impacts on the region’s race, class and gender divisions.

In 1932, the massacre of indigenous Salvadorans and leftists who rebelled against dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez left between 10,000 and 30,000 dead.

Communist Party member Farabundo Martí, who led Salvadoran peasant farmers in their revolt against political corruption and unjust resource allocation, was assassinated after the massacre. But the struggle continued.

By the 1970s, dissident factions again organized against state oppression. United as the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, these groups eventually waged war on the ruling ARENA party, which they blamed for oppressing the Salvadoran working class.

The subsequent Salvadoran civil war killed 75,000 people. In 1992, with intensive military support from the United States, ARENA defeated the rebels.

The 1992 El Salvador peace accords, overseen by the United Nations, were meant to bring national reconciliation. A truth commission documented widespread human rights abuses committed by state and paramilitary forces during the war. But days after the report was released, in 1993, El Salvador’s ARENA-controlled congress passed an amnesty law that excused most government and military officials.

As a result, the root causes of El Salvador’s conflict – particularly, unequal access to insufficient resources – still plague society. So does the very weak rule of law that allowed civil war criminals to go unpunished.

Neither the rightist or leftist governments that have held power since have managed to change this.

El Salvador’s defense minister recently assessed that there are more gang members than soldiers in his country. Police in El Salvador are extremely aggressive in pursuing them, and civilians can get caught in the crossfire, Human Rights Watch finds.

The resulting dangerous disarray sent 46,800 residents to seek asylum in the U.S. last year. Risking the unknown violence of migration over guaranteed violence at home is, for many Salvadorans, a logical decision.

Human security

Crime and violence in El Salvador has declined since President Nayib Bukele took office in June 2019, according to the government.

The president credits his tough-on-gangs policing with improving security in the country. But some crime analysts say the apparent drop in homicides is actually a manipulation of crime data. The government recently changed how it counts murders, eliminating deaths that result from confrontation with security forces – police killings – from the homicide category.

In any case, levels of violence in El Salvador are still among the world’s highest.

Police regularly turn a blind eye to violence by gang members, including both MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs, either due to corruption or concern for their own safety. As a result, Salvadoran police frequently fail to meaningfully protect people from gang violence.

In these circumstances, deporting Salvadoran asylum-seekers may violate an international law called “non-refoulement.”

According to the 1954 United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees, which both the U.S. and El Salvador signed, states cannot expel refugees to a territory “where his life or freedom would be threatened.”

Migrants know El Salvador can’t protect them. That, of course, is why they flee. Now the United States government has to know that, too.

This story has been modified to more accurately characterize the methodology used by Human Rights Watch. It is an updated version of an article originally published Oct. 10, 2019.The Conversation

Mneesha Gellman, Associate Professor of Political Science, Emerson College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

STORYNOV 27, 2018

How a Climate Change-Fueled Drought & U.S.-Fed Violence Are Driving Thousands from Central America

Trump is urging Mexico to deport the thousands of Central American migrants who are at or approaching the U.S. border in an attempt to seek asylum, days after U.S. border authorities fired tear gas into a crowd of asylum seekers as some tried to push their way through the heavily militarized border near San Diego. Trump tweeted, “Mexico should move the flag waving Migrants, many of whom are stone cold criminals, back to their countries. Do it by plane, do it by bus, do it anyway you want, but they are NOT coming into the U.S.A. We will close the Border permanently if need be. Congress, fund the WALL!” This comes just days before Andrés Manuel López Obrador is sworn in as Mexico’s new president. López Obrador’s incoming government has denied it made any deal with the Trump administration to force asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their U.S. asylum claims are processed. We speak with John Carlos Frey, Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter and PBS NewsHour special correspondent. He recently returned from reporting trips in Guatemala, Mexico City and Tijuana, where he was documenting the migrant caravan.

Transcript

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: To take a broader scope on this issue, you have traveled throughout Mexico and trying to deal with how—and to report on how these caravans and Central American migrants and refugees have developed. I’m wondering if you could talk about two aspects that don’t get very much attention in terms of what drives the migrants and the refugees. One is the issue of the growingdrought recently in Central America.And two is also this whole issue of the deportation of felons who were convicted in the United States, maybe raised in the United States, but were originally from El Salvador or Guatemala or Honduras, and have been deported in recent decades.

I think The Washington Post reportedEl Salvador alone, over a 20-year period, 95,000 people were deported from the U.S. after getting out of prison, back to El Salvador. That is 1.5 percent of the entire population of El Salvador—people that were deported back to the country after serving time here in the U.S. The impact of these criminals then going down to their countries where maybe they were born in but they don’t really know and developing the kinds of drug gangs that then force people to flee?

JOHN CARLOS FREY: You bring up two very good reasons for people to leave Central America. And the one that you were just mentioning, we have a program in California and now in the United States, where we will deport people who have Green Cards, people who are in the country legally, if you are a gang member. And it really doesn’t matter if you have been in the United States most of your life. It also doesn’t matter necessarily what crimes you may have committed. If you are a gang member, we’re going to deport you. We have every right to rescind your legal status, and we’re going to send you back to the country of origin, even if you came to the United States as a child.

That is exactly what we have done. That number, 95,000, is actually a bigger number than I even thought. But we have deported tens of thousands of gang members back to Central America, many of them back to El Salvador. And El Salvador just experienced its own civil unrest about 25, 30 years ago. We were deporting a criminal entity into a country that didn’t even have law enforcement. They were not stable. So what happened is these gangs reconstituted in El Salvador and they are now ruling the country. They joined back up in the prisons, and the criminal enterprise in El Salvador, also in Guatemala and Honduras, for the most part, are running the show. That is where the violence is coming from, a seed that we planted from the United States into countries that were not stable.

We didn’t even give any sort of a dossier or any sort of paperwork that allowed the countries to understand who and what we were deporting. We did not give them the crimes that they had committed, how much time they had served in prison or who these individuals were. We basically just said, “Here, you guys deal with this problem. We’re going to wash our hands of it.” Now we’re reaping the rewards of deporting this criminal element.

In addition to that, you mentioned the drought. There is a four- to five-year prolonged drought in Central America in a region known as the Dry Corridor. It encompasses parts of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. This year was one of the worst years of the drought. In some regions, there was 90 to 100 percent crop failure. Eighty percent of the region of this Dry Corridor is rural. It relies solely on agriculture as the base of the economy. And if the crops fail, there are no other jobs, there is no other place to go and people are starving.

I’ve interviewed dozens if not more people who have left Central America who are part of this particular migrant caravan who are hungry. They cannot feed themselves or their families. They have lost their crops. They don’t have any other way to make a living. And they are coming to the United States basically for food. I talked to a woman who was 25 years old. She was with her two-year-old. She was living on one tortilla a day. That’s all she could afford, and she came because there was just no other way for her.

So we’re not dealing with these factors that are sending people here. Putting concertina wire up at the border is not going to solve someone’s poverty, it’s not going to solve the violence in Central America and it’s certainly not going to put food on the table, which is why people are coming.

AMY GOODMAN: And you spent time just last week in Tijuana. Talk about the situation there, John.

...

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https://kpfa.org/episode/rising-up-with-sonali-july-25-2018/

On today’s show, first our daily headlines. Then, as the Philippines controversial President Rodrigo Duterte has given his third State of the Nation Address where he vowed to continue a brutal drug war that has killed thousands, we’ll turn to Aurora Victoria David, Secretary General of the National Alliance of Filipino Concerns for more. Then, the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has called out mainstream media for its uncritical coverage of Trumps wild MS-13 claims. FAIR staff writer Justin Anderson will share how MS-13 is in fact a phenomenon created in the US.

Hosted by Sonali Kolhatkar.

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https://www.alternet.org/propaganda-working-trump-voters-call-ms-13-serious-threat-us-thats-simply-not-true

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https://www.alternet.org/heres-how-decades-paranoid-urban-legends-about-gang-violence-led-voters-believe-trumps-ms-13-lies

amanda marcotte salon

Trump appears to have settled on a campaign strategy to defeat Democrats in the 2018 midterms and to justify his escalating efforts to kick out every non-white immigrant he can. He's told his base of aging white suburbanites and rural residents that a gang called MS-13 has overrun the country. It's unsafe even for white people to leave their homes, the president implies, lest they get murdered by roving bands of marauding Latino immigrants.

"A vote for the Democrats in November is a vote to let MS-13 run wild in our communities," Trump claimed in one of his who-are-you-calling-a-fascist rallies last week in Montana.

On June 30, Trump tweeted: "I have watched ICE liberate towns from the grasp of MS-13," which was a blatant and easily debunked lie.  Despite this, the president doubled down on Friday, insisting on Twitter, "Every day, the brave men and women of ICE are liberating communities from savage gangs like MS-13."

In reality, there are about 10,000 members of this gang in the United States, a number that falls far short of the invading army that Trump suggests has conquered hundreds of American communities. And while Trump wants his followers to believe this alleged army of Latino gang members is murdering white folks left and right, the reality is that the people targeted by the gang for violence are nearly all Latino immigrants themselves.

Why is it, then, that so many white Americans are lapping up Trump's lies? They can open up their doors and see for themselves that their communities are not being occupied by MS-13. If they're still unsure, they can read their own paper and discover that the mass murders their president suggests are happening are nowhere to be seen.

Well, one major reason that many white conservatives are so ready to swallow these falsehoods is the decades-long hysteria over gang violence, which waxes and wanes but never really disappears. Through email forwards, gossip mills and social media posts, white people have traded lurid but false urban legends about how a cousin's friend's friend's sister heard about random gang violence aimed at strangers.

The website Snopeshas been tracking urban legends about gangs — stories, typically false, that are passed by word of mouth — for decades now.

“All of the contemporary legends mentioning gang initiations contain several similar elements," folklorist Gail de Vos writes in her 2012 book "What Happens Next? Contemporary Urban Legends and Popular Culture." Those include "demands that the initiates commit violence against random strangers; the victims are most often women or children; the violence seems pointless and its only purpose is to fulfil the demands of the initiation rite; and gang members are frequently identified as members of ethnic minorities while their victims, implicitly if not explicitly, belong to the white majority.”Brooke Binkowski, a researcher for Snopes, said when she first started out, the urban legends about gang violence had racial elements, but by and larger still functioned more as warnings, like, "Don’t stay out too late, otherwise the gang members will get you." Now, she says, the versions of the tales they gather have become more explicitly racist.

For instance, Snopes has collected email forwards claiming that gangs use dolls in car seats as bait to catch women as murder victims, that they set a quota of 31 women to kill on Halloween night, that they flash their headlights at random people and kill whoever flashes back, and many other stories in this vein. Many tales go back decades and resurface periodically in updated versions and different communities. Details change from telling to telling, but the basic parameters stay the same.

“It’s remarkable how little the stories change. It’s always about the ‘other’ bringing in disease and violence," Binkowski said.

One thing that does change, Binkowski said, is which specific racial or ethnic group is being accused of the violence. Right now, the gangs haunting white imaginations are primarily assumed to be Latino. In the past, the paranoia was primarily directed at African-Americans or, going back far enough, Chinese immigrants, who were subject to similar accusations of preying on white women in the 19th century.

When I was in high school myself, there was a national panic over gang warfare that reached levels of silliness rivaling the nonsense Trump spouts on the regular. To be clear, gangs were a problem in the 1990s in some communities, but the stories about them roaming suburban malls preying on white women were just as fanciful then as they are now. The hysteria got so out of control that my high school in rural Texas, which had fewer than 400 students, even got caught up in claims that "gang violence" was going on that we somehow weren't personally witnessing.There urban legends are ludicrous, free of any factual evidence and easily debunked by, but the very fact that they are spread by word of mouth is what gives them so much power. People are far more likely to trust in information they hear from friends and relatives than what they gather from supposedly neutral or objective sources.

In 2008, Snopes noted another escalation of panic about gangs, which the site attributed to "a change in national leadership looming just over the horizon," a gentle way of suggesting that white people where panicking at the idea of a black president. Barack Obama and his family have since been targeted by a number of urban legends linking them to gangs, including a 2017 rumor that Malia Obama had been arrested "when she decided to join a gang of thugs in Chicago for a day of drinking, drugs and dogfighting at a public park in Chicago."

(Needless to say, this did not happen.)

Urban legends about gangs frequently get support from the right-wing media,directly or otherwise. Sites like Breitbart and Drudge reliably whip up hysteria about gangs, misleading their readers into thinking that they are in immediate danger from these groups. Over the years, Fox News has run stories falsely claiming, for instance, that young black people were randomly punching white people in an effort to knock them out, echoing urban legends about violent "gang initiation" practices.

Binkowski suggests that these racist urban legends are reinforced in a couple of key ways. First, there are TV and movies "where you rarely have a Latino character" that isn't portrayed as some kind of violent gangster. Then there are active propaganda efforts, conducted by the president himself as well as right-wing groups like the Remembrance Project that try to provide evidence that the urban legends are true.

One of Trump's favorite tactics is to flank himself with groups of mostly white people whose have had a family member killed by an undocumented immigrant.He did this, for instance, as a rebuttal to those who criticized his policyof separating parents and children at the border. These white people offer what appears to be visual proof that the urban legends are right, and MS-13 is killing random white people for sport. But digging into their unquestionably tragic stories, it quickly becomes evident that most have no real relationship to gang violence — some of them are literally accidents. It bears repeating that immigrants are less likely to commit crime than native-born citizens, and that most murder victims are killed by someone they know.

In contrast, a large percentage of the people who are detained and treated like violent criminals for crossing the border without papers are genuinely victims of MS-13 and other gangs, and are trying to reach the United States to escape them. In that light, Trump is actually a great friend to MS-13: His crackdown on refugees is making it easier for the gang to terrorize people in Central America, where, unlike in small-town Montana or Iowa, gangs have real power.

Urban legends have been a part of human culture for centuries, and are frequently used to reinforce ugly social prejudices that can't be justified by facts. Under Trump's presidency, however, the situation has grown worse, as he is able to use his power and the bully pulpit to give credibility to stories that have no basis in reality. So millions of white people have become convinced, even in an era of historically low rates of violent crime in America, that their sleepy little suburbs are being invaded and controlled by invisible and imaginary gangs.

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https://www.npr.org/2018/06/03/616552016/the-realities-of-ms-13

This past week at a rally in Nashville, President Trump returned to one of his favorite themes, the dangers of MS-13. And the crowd was ready for it - chanting a word the president has used to describe the street gang.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: What was the name?

UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Animals.

TRUMP: Animals. MS-13 takes advantage of glaring loopholes in our immigration laws to infiltrate our country. That's what they do.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: President Trump talks about the gang as a foreign threat that comes over the southern border. But MS-13 was founded in Los Angeles by immigrants fleeing the U.S.-backed conflicts in Central America. To understand more, we're joined now by David Kennedy. He's a professor of criminal justice at John Jay College in New York, and he's looked at MS-13. Welcome to the program.

DAVID KENNEDY: Thank you, Lulu.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: MS-13 was founded in Los Angeles, right? - in the 1980s in immigrant communities, mainly Central American immigrant communities. And it was connected to LA gang culture. What happened then?

KENNEDY: We sent a lot of those people home. And they took LA gang culture with them. And what's been going on ever since is a kind of back and forth in which we send gang-involved folks andAmerican gang culture not just to El Salvador but to Mexico and Honduras. It is much more serious there than anywhere in the United States. But some of that then leaches back north, and we send people home again, and on and on and on it goes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Tell me how big a problem MS-13 is in your view. I mean, how many members of MS-13 are there in the United States?

KENNEDY: Well, the answer to that is nobody really knows. My office does what people would think of as gang violence work in cities all over the country. And MS-13 is not an issue in any of them.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So what happens when the commander in chief raises the profile of a gang like MS-13? What's been the reaction from law enforcement?

KENNEDY: The reality of both serious, violent crime in the United States and of law enforcement in the United States is that it's fundamentally local. So there's been an MS-13 kind of hot spot in Virginia for quite some time. There has been activity in the Northeast, around Boston. There's been this horrific spike a year or so ago on Long Island in Nassau County, near where I am in New York City. So where it matters, it matters. It's just that there really aren't that many places where it matters.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But does it make it easier for law enforcement to tackle them?

KENNEDY: The general change in tone in the country around immigration absolutely makes this problem worse because the most likely victims of gang violence are people in the immediate community. And there's no question that in the last couple of years, we're seeing reductions in reporting of crime by mainstream immigrant communities. And what that means is that people are afraid to report. And that gives the really dangerous the room they need to operate.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You're saying that because immigrant communities feel under threat, they wouldn't go and report if they were being coerced by MS-13 or another group because they feel that they might not get the help they need or other repercussions could come their way.

KENNEDY: Won't get the help they need or worse, yes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: David Kennedy, criminal justice professor at John Jay College, thank you so much.

==

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-13

Mara Salvatrucha (MS), also known as MS-13 (the 13 representing their Sureño affiliation), is an international criminal gang that originated in Los Angeles, California, in the 1980s. The gang later spread to many parts of the continental United States, Canada, Mexico, and Central America, and is active in urban and suburban areas. Most members are of Central American origin, principally El Salvador.

Members of MS are characterized by tattoos covering the body, including the face, and by the use of their own sign language. They are notorious for their violence and a subcultural moral code based on merciless retribution. This cruelty of the distinguished members of the "Maras" or "Mareros" earned them a path to be recruited by the Sinaloa Cartel battling against Los Zetas in an ongoing drug war in Mexico.[5][6][7] Their wide-ranging activities have drawn the attention of the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who have initiated wide-scale raids against known and suspected gang members, arresting hundreds across the United States.[8]

Etymology

There is some dispute about the etymology of the name. Some sources state the gang is named for La Mara, a street gang in San Salvador, and the Salvatrucha guerrillas who fought in the Salvadoran Civil War.[9] Additionally, the word mara means gang in Caliche slang and is taken from marabunta, the name of a fierce type of ant. "Salvatrucha" may be a combination of the words Salvadoran and trucha, a Caliche word for being alert. The term "Salvatruchas" has been explained as a reference to Salvadorian peasants trained to become guerrilla fighters, referred to as "Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front."[10]

Physical appearance

An MSgang sign and tattoos

Minors make up the majority of suspects arrested for killings attributed to MS-13. Many school districts were reluctant to admit unaccompanied teenagers when they arrived from Central America, which left them home alone and vulnerable to gang recruitment.[11]

Many Mara Salvatrucha members cover themselves in tattoos. Common markings include "MS", "Salvatrucha", the "Devil Horns", the name of their clique, and other symbols.[12] A December 2007 CNN internet news article stated that the gang was moving away from face tattoos so as to be able to commit crimes without being noticed.[13]

Members of Mara Salvatrucha, like members of most modern American gangs, utilize a system of hand signs for purposes of identification and communication. One of the most commonly displayed is the "devil's head" which forms an 'M' when displayed upside down. This hand sign is similar to the symbol commonly displayed by heavy metal musicians and their fans. Founders of Mara Salvatrucha borrowed the hand sign after attending concerts of heavy metal bands.[14]

Presence

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MS-13 presence:{:{    :(style="border:1px solid gray;background-color:#ffb7c5;"):}: territories with a weaker presence:(style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:1px;display:block"):}::{:{    :(style="border:1px solid gray;background-color:#ff0800;"):}: territories with a stronger presence:(style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:1px;display:block"):}:

In the U.S., MS-13 has an especially heavy presence inLos Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay Area in California; the Washington, D.C. metropolitan areas of Fairfax County, Virginia, and Montgomery County[15] and Prince George's County, Maryland; Queens and Long Island in New York; Newark, Plainfield, Jersey City, and Elizabeth, New Jersey; the Boston, Massachusetts area; Charlotte, North Carolina; Atlanta, Georgia; and Houston, Texas. There is also a presence of MS-13 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Strength numbers include more than 10,000 nationally and 2,000 on Long Island, New York. It is estimated to have around 30,000 members internationally.[16]

MS-13 appears to use Texas as a stopping point for travel from Los Angeles to the East Coast and for the trafficking of drugs, humans, and weapons between Mexico and the United States.[17]

In Central America, the gang is strongest in the "Northern Triangle" of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.

History

The Mara Salvatrucha gang originated in Los Angeles, set up in the 1980s by Salvadoran immigrants in the city's Pico-Union neighborhood who immigrated to the United States after the Central American civil wars of the 1980s.[18]

Originally, the gang's main purpose was to protect Salvadoran immigrants from other, more established gangs of Los Angeles, who were predominantly composed of Mexicans and African-Americans.[19]

Many Mara Salvatrucha gang members from the Los Angeles area have been deported after being arrested.[20] For example, Jose Abrego, a high-ranking member, was deported four times.[21] As a result of these deportations, members of MS-13 have recruited more members in their home countries.[22] The Los Angeles Times contends that deportation policies have contributed to the size and influence of the gang both in the United States and in Central America.[20] According to the 2009 National Gang Threat Assessment, "The gang is estimated to have 30,000 to 50,000 members and associate members worldwide, 8,000 to 10,000 of whom reside in the United States.[1]

Since the first decade of the twenty-first century the gang has expanded into the Washington, D.C. area, in particular the areas of Langley Park and Takoma Park, Maryland.[23]

In 2004, the FBI started the MS-13 National Gang Task Force. The FBI also began teaming with law enforcement in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico.[24]

In 2005, the office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement started Operation Community Shield. By 2011, this operation had made over 20,000 arrests, including more than 3,000 arrests of alleged MS-13 members.[25]

The NYPD said that MS-13 were responsible for 17 murders between January 2016 and April 2016 in Long Island.[26]

On July 27, 2017, 113 suspected MS-13 gang members were arrested by Salvadoran authorities.[27]

In an interview with Bill Ritter in late 2017, Nassau County, New York District Attorney Madeline Singas, referring to crimes committed by MS-13 gang members, stated: "The crimes that we're talking about are brutal. Their weapon of choice is a machete. We end up seeing people with injuries that I've never seen before. You know, limbs hacked off. And that's what the bodies look like that we're recovering. So they're brutal. They're ruthless, and we're gonna be relentless in our attacks against them."[28] The choice of a machete is in contrast to other gangs, which prefer to use guns.[29]

Illegal immigration and human smuggling

According to The Washington Times, MS-13 "is thought to have established a major smuggling center" in Mexico.[30] There were reports by the Minuteman Project that MS members were ordered to Arizona to target U.S. Border Patrol agents and Minuteman Project volunteers.[31]

Robert Morales, a prosecutor for Guatemala, indicated to The Globe and Mail that some Central American gang members seek refugee status in Canada. Superintendent of the Royal Canadian Mounted Policeintegrated gang task force, John Robin, said in an interview, "I think [gang members] have a feeling that police here won't treat them in the harsh manner they get down there."[32] Robin noted that Canadian authorities "want to avoid ending up like the U.S., which is dealing with the problem of Central American gangsters on a much bigger scale".[32]

The gang is violent to migrants on the southern border of Mexico.[33]

False Al-Qaeda connection

In 2005, Honduran Security Minister Oscar Álvarez and the President of El Salvador raised alarm by claiming that terrorist organization Al-Qaeda was meeting with Mara Salvatrucha and other Central American gangs to help them infiltrate the United States. FBI agents said that the U.S. intelligence community and governments of several Central American countries found that there was no basis to believe that MS-13 was connected to Al-Qaeda or other Islamic radicals, although the head of the FBI task force on MS-13 did visit Central America to discuss the issue.[34]

Publicized crimes

The Central American population in North America is the primary victim of MS-13.[22] Many of the victims are minors.[11]

Aspirants are beaten for 13 seconds as an initiation to join the gang, a ritual known as a "beat-in".[35][36][37][38][39][40]

On July 13, 2003, Brenda Paz, a 17-year-old former MS-13 member turned informant was found stabbed to death on the banks of the Shenandoah River in Virginia. She was killed for informing the FBI about Mara Salvatrucha's criminal activities; two of her former friends were later convicted of the murder.[41]

In 2004, the FBI created the MS-13 National Gang Task Force.[42] In 2005, the FBI helped create a National Gang Information Center (NGIC), and outlined a National Gang Strategy for Congress.[43]

On December 23, 2004, one of the most widely publicized MS-13 crimes in Central America occurred in Chamelecón, Honduras, when an intercity bus was intercepted and sprayed with automatic gunfire from assault rifles,[44] killing 28 and wounding 14 civilian passengers, most of whom were women and children.[45] MS-13 organized the massacre as a protest against the Honduran government for proposing a restoration of the death penalty in Honduras. Six gunmen raked the bus with gunfire. As passengers screamed and ducked, another gunman climbed aboard and methodically executed passengers.[46] In February 2007, Juan Carlos Miranda Bueso and Darwin Alexis Ramírez were found guilty of several crimes, including murder and attempted murder. Ebert Anibal Rivera was arrested over the attack after fleeing to Texas.[47] Juan Bautista Jimenez, accused of masterminding the massacre, was killed in prison; according to the authorities, fellow MS-13 inmates hanged him.[48] There was insufficient evidence to convict Óscar Fernando Mendoza and Wilson Geovany Gómez.[47]

An MS-13 suspect bearinggang tattoos is handcuffed.

On May 13, 2006, Ernesto "Smokey" Miranda, a former high-ranking soldier and one of the founders of Mara Salvatrucha, was murdered at his home in El Salvador a few hours after declining to attend a party for a gang member who had just been released from prison. He had begun studying law and working to keep children out of gangs.[49]

On June 6, 2006,[50] a teenage MS-13 gang member named Gabriel Granillo was stabbed to death at Ervan Chew Park in the Neartown district in Houston, Texas.[51] Chris Vogel of the Houston Press wrote that the trial of the girl who stabbed Granillo, Ashley Paige Benton,[52] gave attention to MS-13.[53]

In 2007, Julio Chavez, a Long Island MS-13 member, allegedly murdered a man because he was wearing a red sweatshirt and mistaken for a member of the Bloods gang.[54]

On June 4, 2008, in Toronto, Ontario, police executed search warrants, made 21 arrests, and laid dozens of charges following a five-month investigation.[55]

On June 22, 2008, in San Francisco, California, a 21-year-old MS-13 gang member, Edwin Ramos, shot and killed a father, Anthony Bologna, 48, and his two sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, as they were returning home from a family barbecue. Their car had briefly blocked Ramos from completing a left turn down a narrow street .[56]

On November 26, 2008, Jonathan Retana was convicted of the murder of Miguel Angel Deras, which the authorities linked to an MS-13 initiation.[57]

Gang graffiti

In 2008, the MS-13 Task Force coordinated a series of arrests and crackdowns in the U.S. and Central America that involved more than 6,000 police officers in five countries. Seventy-three suspects were arrested in the U.S.; in all, more than 650 were taken into custody.[citation needed]

In February 2009, authorities in Colorado and California arrested 20 members of MS-13 and seized 10 pounds of methamphetamine, 2.3 kilograms (5 pounds) of cocaine, a small amount of heroin, 12 firearms, and $3,300 in cash.[58]

In June 2009, Edwin Ortiz, Jose Gomez Amaya, and Alexander Aguilar, MS-13 gang members from Long Island who had mistaken bystanders for rival gang members, shot two innocent civilians. Edgar Villalobos, a laborer, was killed.[59]

On November 4, 2009, El Salvadoran leaders of the MS-13 gang allegedly put out a contract on the federal agent responsible for a crackdown on its New York factions, the Daily Newslearned. The plot to assassinate the unidentified Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent was revealed in an arrest warrant for reputed gang member Walter "Duke" Torres. Torres tipped authorities to the plan after he and four MS-13 members were stopped by NYPD detectives for hassling passersby on Northern Boulevard. in Queens, New York. He told police he had information to pass on; he was debriefed on October 22 at Rikers Island, where he was being held on a warrant issued in Virginia, according to court papers. Torres said "the order for the murder came from gang leadership in El Salvador", ICE agent Sean Sweeney wrote in an affidavit for a new warrant charging Torres with conspiracy. Torres, who belonged to an MS-13 "clique" in Virginia, said he was put in charge, and traveled to New York in August "for the specific purpose of participating in the planning and execution of the murder plot", Sweeney wrote. Gang members were trying to obtain a high-powered rifle to penetrate the agent's bulletproof vest. Another MS-13 informant told authorities the agent was marked for death because the gang was "exceedingly angry" at him for arresting many members in the past three years, the affidavit states. The murder was supposed to be carried out by the Flushing clique, according to the informant. Federal prosecutors have indicted numerous MS-13 gang members on racketeering, extortion, prostitution, kidnapping, illegal immigration, money laundering, murder, people smuggling, arms trafficking, human trafficking and drug trafficking charges; the targeted special agent was the lead federal investigator on many of the federal cases.[60]

Sinaloa Cartel hierarchy in early 2008

In 2010, Rene Mejia allegedly murdered a Long Island 2-year-old baby and his mother.[54]

In August 2011, six San Francisco MS-13 members were convicted of racketeering and conspiracy, including three murders, in what was the city's largest-scope gang trial in many years. Another 18 defendants reported to have ties to the gang pleaded guilty before trial.[61]

In 2011, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in New Haven, Connecticut, was vandalized several times with the "MS-13 tag" and "kill whites" in orange spray paint.[62]

In February 2012, a federal judge convicted three MS-13 gang members of murder. Danilo Velasquez, the former leader of the San Francisco branch of MS-13, was sentenced to life imprisonment plus 10 years, and is incarcerated at USP Hazelton.[63]

In January 2016, over 400 Boston police officers were involved in the arrests of 37 MS-13 members; 56 were charged altogether. Guns, knives, and money were also seized at the homes of the gang members. Massachusetts State Police Lt. Col. Frank Hughes commented in a public conference, "In my 30 years of law enforcement, I've never seen a more violent gang out there. These are very very violent individuals. The violence is unspeakable." The charges included immigration violations, racketeering, and firearm and drug trafficking.[64]

In August 2017, two undisclosed members were charged with the January murder of 19-year-old civilian Julio Cesar Gonzales-Espantzay, who was lured to a forest in Long Island, where he was attacked with machetes and stabbed with knives. Nassau County police also said the two members were responsible for 21 murders in New York in just short of 2 years. Authorities said the motive was to gain reputation.[65]

On August 13-14, 2017, New Jersey MS-13 faction member Walter Yovany Gomez, who was added to the FBI most wanted list in April 2017,[66] was apprehended and charged with the brutal 2011 murder of his friend, Julio Matute, for associating with another gang. After a night of drinking, Gomez and another MS-13 member smacked Matute on the head with a baseball bat, sliced his throat with a knife, and stabbed him in the back with a screwdriver 17 times. Gomez managed to evade arrest but was later captured in Virginia, where he was hiding out with other MS-13 gang members.[67]

The Washington, D.C., think tank Center for Immigration Studies released a report that listed 506 cases of MS-13 criminal acts in the United States between 2012 and 2018.[68]

In 2017, two MS-13 members, Miguel Alvarez-Flores and Diego Hernandez-Rivera, were arrested for kidnapping, raping, torturing, and drugging a 14-year-old girl for over 2 weeks. According to the 14-year-old, the members also held another victim, "Genesis", hostage in the same apartment.[69]

The East Coast kingpin of the MS-13, Miguel Angel Corea Diaz, of Laurel, Maryland (of Prince George's County), was arraigned April 19, 2018 in Nassau County Court in Mineola, New York, on charges including conspiracy to commit murder. He could be sentenced to life in prison if he is convicted. He was one of seventeen defendants in a 21-count indictment in January that charged him with several counts of conspiracy to commit murder and operating as a high-level trafficker of controlled substances. He was extradited the week of April 23, 2018, from Prince George's County, Maryland, where he was held since October. The earlier jailing was in lieu of $125,000 bail.[70] The gang reportedly issued a call to "take out a cop" in retaliation for Diaz's arrest.[71]

Child prostitution

In 2011, Alonso "Casper" Bruno Cornejo Ormeno, an associate of MS-13 from Fairfax, Virginia was sentenced to 292 months in prison for child prostitution. Ormeno recruited juvenile females into a prostitution ring by locating runaway children.[72]

Rances Ulices Amaya, a leader of MS-13, of Springfield, Virginia was convicted in February 2012 for trafficking girls as young as 14 into a prostitution ring. He was sentenced in June 2012 to 50 years in prison for child prostitution. The girls were lured from middle schools, high schools, and public shelters. Once acquired by Amaya, they were required to have sex with as many as ten men per day.[73]

In September 2012, Yimmy Anthony Pineda Penado, also known as "Critico" and "Spike", of Maryland, was a former "clique leader" of MS-13. Penado became the eleventh MS-13 gang member to be convicted of child prostitution since 2011.[74]

Charlotte, North Carolina cases

In the first decade of the 21st century, U.S. authorities investigated MS-13 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The work eventually led to charges against 26 MS-13 members, including 7 trial convictions in January 2010, 18 guilty pleas, and 11 multi-year prison sentences.[75]

This included the alleged first federal death penalty conviction for an MS-13 member, Alejandro Enrique Ramirez Umaña, aka "Wizard" (age 25).[75]

In 2005, in Los Angeles, according to a jury in a later sentencing phase, Umaña murdered Jose Herrera and Gustavo Porras on July 27, and participated in and aided and abetted the killing of Andy Abarca on September 28. He later came to Charlotte, North Carolina, according to witnesses, as a veteran member of MS-13, to reorganize the Charlotte cell of the gang.[75]

According to witnesses at his trial on December 8, 2007, while in the Las Jarochitas, a family-run restaurant in Greensboro, North Carolina, Umaña shot Ruben Garcia Salinas fatally in the chest and Manuel Garcia Salinas in the head. Witnesses testified that the shootings took place after the Garcia Salinas brothers had "disrespected" Umaña's gang signs by calling them "fake". Firing three more shots in the restaurant, according to trial testimony, Umaña injured another person with his gunfire. Trial testimony and evidence showed that Umaña later fled back to Charlotte with MS-13 assistance. Umaña was arrested five days later in possession of the murder weapon. Additional evidence and testimony from the trial revealed that Umaña coordinated attempts to kill witnesses and informants while he was incarcerated awaiting trial.[75]

Umaña was indicted by a federal grand jury on June 23, 2008. During the trial, he attempted to bring a knife with him into the courtroom, which was discovered by U.S. Marshals before he was transported to the courthouse. Thousands of hours were spent on the case over several years. International work was also involved.[75]

The case was investigated by the Charlotte Safe Streets Task Force. The case was prosecuted by Chief Criminal Assistant U.S. Attorney Jill Westmoreland Rose of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of North Carolina, and Trial Attorney Sam Nazzaro from the Criminal Division's Gang Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Don Gast and Adam Morris of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of North Carolina were also members of the government's trial team.[75]

Charges included:[75]

On April 19, 2010, the jury convicted Umaña of all charges, and additionally found him responsible for the 2005 murders during the sentencing phase. On April 28, a 12-person federal jury in Charlotte voted unanimously to impose the death penalty. On July 27, 2010, Chief U.S. District Judge Robert J. Conrad, Jr., of Charlotte, NC, formally imposed the federal death penalty sentence. Also commenting on the decision in the government press release were Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer, of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Anne M. Tompkins of the Western District of North Carolina, Owen D Harris, Special Agent in charge of the Charlotte Division of the FBI, and Rodney Monreo, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief.[75]

The case was automatically appealed under Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.[75]

Sanctions

In October 2012, the U.S. Treasury Department announced a freeze on American-owned assets controlled by the organization and listed MS-13 as a transnational criminal organization.[76] While the three leaders (José Luís Mendoza Figueroa, Eduardo Erazo Nolasco, and Élmer Canales Rivera) were imprisoned in El Salvador, they continued to give orders. As a result, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed further sanctions in 2015, allowing the government to seize all assets controlled by these men; any business with these leaders would no longer be allowed.[77]

On November 16, 2017, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials announced that they arrested a total of 267 alleged MS-13 gang members and associates in Operation Raging Bull, which was carried out in two phases. The first phase was in September 2017, and resulted in 53 arrests in El Salvador. The second phase was between October 8 and November 11, 2017, and resulted in 214 arrests in the U.S. Charges included drug trafficking, child prostitution, human smuggling, racketing, conspiracy to commit murder.[78][79][80][81]

In film

  1. 2007 season 1 episode 2, titled "You Rat, You Die" – Former gang member turned informant Brenda Paz had been supplying the authorities with first-hand accounts of MS-13's operations; she was later found dead.[84]
  2. 2008 season 1 episode 13, titled "Root of All Evil" – Reports on the drugs and prostitution rackets run by MS-13.[85][86]

See also

References

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When President Trump recently called MS13 gang members “animals” while addressing the issue of immigrants who commit crime within U.S. borders, he pulled — pardon the puns — a classic scapegoating technique, or as a friend noted, “a red herring” — both of which point the finger instead of looking in the mirror.

Sure, no nation wants criminals within its borders, but as my friend also observed, she’s scared shitless every time she drops off her sons at a school in Florida, one county north of Parkland. Last week, some kid allegedly threatened a school shooting. Her anxiety about saying “have a nice day” to her children is heartbreaking. Since when did lunch boxes include snacks of last goodbyes?

Who is the real animal then? Animals rarely kill for sport. The real animal is humanity, the only mammal that kills at the behest of its ego, and cares not for other sentient beings. Oppenheimer was an animal, and so were the Japanese militia. The government of El Salvador that created an environment for gangs to thrive is an animal — it abandons its people. Murderous thugs have existed since a bipedal creature resembling a human painted a bison on a cave wall, and scapegoating — shedding the blood of an other to cleanse, to appease the gods, to rid the body politic of disease — is at the plot of an ancient tale we’ve heard time and time again in many histories: the blood of virgins, the sacrificial lamb, the countless genocides.

And yet, I blame no one, point no fingers. I too, am an animal, and although I’ve never killed, I’ve been cruel. Who shall cast the first stone? I’m obviously not talking about taking a life, when I ask you, reader, who you’ve killed today, with thoughts on the opposite end of kindness, perhaps even directed at yourself.

A Zen koan says: “when you see the Buddha on the road, kill him.” That’s not literal, either, but illustrates the duality that blinds us from seeing our connection to others and the beating of source in our hearts. Violence within, violence without: we’re seething in its viscous blood, we drink it for breakfast.

We thrive on this insidious violence in every aspect of our lives, it shores up in the collective pain body we witness writhing each day on the news.

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, echoing mercy of the divine feminine, responded to Trump’s statement by reminding us that all humans have a spark of divinity, but let’s not forget, as St. Augustine pointed out: “we see through a glass darkly” and no child can access spirit growing up in the poverty-stricken streets of El Salvador. But here’s what makes it scarier: here in the U.S., the confused kid who shoots his brother is also disconnected from the divine.

Should the U.S. harbor criminals from other nations? Of course not. We should deal with criminals accordingly — including those breakers of the law who claim U.S. citizenship. But look to your own backyard, President Trump, to the homeless men and women sleeping on your lawn, who were once children full of hope, and remember that you too, see through a glass darkly, every time you look in the mirror, and when you awaken to Tweet angrily.

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https://www.alternet.org/here-are-5-things-donald-trump-gets-wrong-about-street-gang-ms-13

5 Things Donald Trump Gets Wrong About the Street Gang MS-13

The gang is not invading the country. They’re not posing as fake families. They’re not growing. To stop them, the government needs to understand them.

By Hannah Dreier / ProPublica June 25, 2018, 3:25 AM GMT

There’s one thing everyone can agree with President Donald Trump on about the street gang MS-13: The group specializes in spectacular violence. Its members attack in groups, in the woods, at night, luring teens to their deaths with the promise of girls or weed. One Long Island boy told me he doesn’t go to parties anymore because he worries any invitation could be a trap. A victim’s father showed me a death certificate that said his son’s head had been bashed in, then lowered his voice and added that the boy’s bones had been marked by machete slashes, but he didn’t want the mother to know that. A teenager who has left the gang told me he considers himself dead already, and is just trying to make sure MS-13 doesn’t kill his family.

I’m spending the year reporting on MS-13 members and their associates. I’ve been combing through their text messages. I’m talking with the detectives building cases against killers not yet old enough to buy cigarettes. And I’ve been spending long evenings with the gang’s victims, who often start crying as soon as they start talking about the violence that has marred their lives. Everyone agrees the gang is bloodthirsty. Most of the other assertions I’ve heard from the Trump administration this year about MS-13 have almost no connection to what I’m seeing on the ground.

  1. MS-13 Is Not Organizing to Foil Immigration Law

Trump often talks about how MS-13 has carried out a string of murders in the suburbs outside New York City. One of the first things I did when I started reporting was talk to the ex-girlfriend of the gang leader charged with ordering six of those killings in 2016 and 2017. The girl sat at a Panera Bread in a Long Island strip mall and told how he had kidnapped and raped her shortly after her 15th birthday, threatened her family, and forced her to get a tattoo of his name on her arm. As I talked to her, I imagined a man like the ones I had seen in news reports on MS-13 — chins jutted out, arms strong from lifting weights, and gothic tattoos of the letters M and S on their faces and chests. I was shocked when I eventually saw this gang leader in court; he was a baby-faced 19-year-old who blushed when girls waved to him from the gallery. The indictment against him laid out killings that were ordered in response to adolescent trash talking.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has called MS-13 the most brutal of the gangs driving the drug trade, and promised to go after the group like the government went after mob boss Al Capone. Really, experts have found the gang has barely any role in the international drug trade. The Congressional Research Service said that it could be misleading to call MS-13 a transnational criminal organization at all, because it has no central leader or global ambitions. The gang is made up of sometimes competing cliques, often led by teenagers most interested in wielding power over other young people in their immediate circles.

On Long Island, a detective told me police officers call MS-13 members “mighty munchkins,” because they have often not yet hit their growth spurts and tend to commit their crimes in large groups. They meet at night because, while other criminal organizations have massive international revenue streams, these guys — even the leaders — have to work menial jobs and sometimes go to school during the day. Each clique has its own shot caller, and its own hyperlocal focus. On Long Island, the gang’s focus has often been on controlling the halls of a single high school.

  1. MS-13 Is Not Posing as Fake Families at the Border

In justifying the policy of child separation last week, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen said, “The kids are being used as pawns by the smugglers and the traffickers. Those are traffickers, those are smugglers and that is MS-13.” The theory is that Central American gang leaders are showing up at the border falsely claiming to be the parents of children, and are also instructing unaccompanied minors to go to the U.S. and claim territory.

Actually, there have been fewer than 200 cases of false family claims this year — a fraction of 1 percent of the total number of families apprehended at the border — and there is no indication that any of those cases involved MS-13. Of the hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied minors that have come to the U.S. since 2012, Border Patrol says only 56 were suspected of MS-13 ties.

The gang is trying to find new members, but there’s no need to step on the toes of the Mexican gangs that control human smuggling to do it. Long Island teenagers tell me that when they show up to school, gang members sit down next to them at lunch and ask them to join. Many— worn down by loneliness, boredom and the threat of violence if they try to refuse — accept the invitation.

People who study MS-13 agree that when young gang members travel from El Salvador to the U.S., they are driven by the same economic factors driving other Central American immigrants. Even the 19-year-old gang leader charged with six murders on Long Island told his ex-girlfriend he was not a member of the gang when he came to the U.S. from El Salvador. He said it was only later, in the New York suburbs, that he was recruited.

And some MS-13 members are born right here. The Suffolk County Police Department examined a sample of active MS-13 members and found that just a quarter had come to the U.S. as unaccompanied minors. The natural conclusion: This is not a border issue. It’s a recruitment issue.

  1. MS-13 Is Sticking Around, but It’s Not Growing

Trump talks about the gang as if it is suddenly taking over. “The weak illegal immigration policies of the Obama Admin. allowed bad MS 13 gangs to form in cities across U.S.,” he wrote in a tweet.

MS-13 has been stubbornly persistent, but it remains a boutique criminal organization, accounting for a tiny portion of 1.4 million gang members nationwide. Trump’s Justice Department says there are about 10,000 MS-13 members in the U.S., the same number as 10 years ago. There’s also nothing new about MS-13 alarmism. Back in 2005, Newsweek ran a cover story about the group, citing its 10,000 members, under the headline, “The most dangerous gang in America.”

On Long Island, the murder people cite most often when talking about MS-13’s brutality is the killing of a two-year-old and his mother back in 2010. But the gang’s history goes back much further than that; the FBI set up a Long Island task force to crack down on the gang in 2003. And MS-13 never invaded the U.S at all. It was founded in Los Angeles in the 1980s, and then mixed with California prison gang culture and was exported to El Salvador.

The group remains significantly smaller than the Crips, the Bloods and the Latin Kings; it’s also smaller than several gangs you’ve probably never heard of, like the Gangster Disciples in Chicago. Even the Center for Immigration Studies, which has been labeled an extremist group for its anti-immigrant ideology, can’t come up with more than an average of 35 murders per year attributed to MS-13 — far fewer than that Chicago gang you didn’t know existed.

MS-13 is not the largest, the most violent, or the fastest-growing gang, but it is the U.S. gang most strongly tied to Central America, which is where the majority of asylum-seeking teenagers come from. In that way, it’s the perfect focal point for Trump’s message of closed borders.

  1. MS-13 Is Preying on a Specific Community, Not the Country at Large

When confronted last week with audio obtained by ProPublica of wailing children separated from their parents, White House Communications Adviser Mercedes Schlapp said, “What’s very heartbreaking is to watch Americans who have lost their children because of the MS-13 gang members.” But the vast majority of MS-13 victims are young immigrants, many of them undocumented.

I often think about this when I’m out reporting. This year, I have reached out to current gang members and added them as friends on Facebook. I’ve visited the homes of people on the local clique’s kill list, and heard their police-issued panic buttons hum under tables and behind doors. I’ve explored the wooded areas Long Island police call “the killing fields,” where bodies have been found. I feel safe doing this because MS-13 rarely goes after true outsiders — people who are not friends with any gang members or targets for recruitment. The closest I’ve found in Long Island to a totally random victim was a worker at a Central American deli who was hurt when a bullet passed through the head of a targeted victim.

The White House put out a statement last month that described recent murders carried out by “MS-13 animals.” Lost in the controversy over whether it was OK to call gang members animals was the fact that of the six identified victims, five were immigrants and the other was a child of immigrants.

  1. Immigration Raids and Deportation Can Only Go So Far

Secretary Nielsen said last week that the presence of MS-13 in the U.S. is “the exclusive product of loopholes in our federal immigration laws.” The loopholes she is talking about are actually specific protections contained in United Nations conventions on refugees and torture, which the U.S. ratified. The U.S. is obligated to allow Central American immigrants to stay in the country while their asylum claims are processed, which can take years. If the person pleading asylum is a minor, they are supposed to be released to relatives.

But if U.S. officials determine that a teenager is a gang member, they stay in custody. And immigration officials can also re-detain teenagers who are recruited into MS-13 once they get here. Dozens of Long Island teenagers were re-detained last year on suspicion of gang ties. The problem is that it can be hard to tell who is in the gang and who is just adopting gang style. MS-13 has its own music and aesthetic, bound up in Central American pride. On Long Island, some immigrant teens use MS-13 markers as a fashion statement, the way American kids might once have worn the blue bandanas associated with the Crips because they liked Snoop Dogg.

I sat in on one hearing for a Long Island 17-year-old who had been detained for half a year after he wrote the El Salvador telephone code, “503,” in a notebook at school. He had spent some of that time in a detention center now under investigation for child abuse. At the hearing, an immigration judge ordered the teen released and openly mocked the gang charges. “I note that ‘503’ is an area code,” the judge said. “He may have had his grandmother’s phone number written in his notebook. We don’t know. But I think this is slim, slim evidence on which to base the continuing detention of an unaccompanied child.”

That’s not to say that all of the immigrant teenagers accused of gang affiliation are innocent. But Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested some 8,000 suspected MS-13 members in the past decade. If deportation was all it took, the gang would be gone by now.

So What?

This all matters because the gang really is terrorizing a portion of the population: young Latino immigrants in a few specific communities.

Last month, I accompanied the mother of a high school freshman killed by MS-13 to a Trump event on Long Island. Inside a government building, the president railed against the gang. “They killed a cop for the sake of making a statement. They wanted to make a statement, so they killed a cop,” he said. (They did not kill a cop.)

Outside, the mother drifted between a pro-Trump rally and a counter protest. She took tranquilizer pills so she could face local reporters, and then told them she was unsure if Trump really cared about victims like her. She said she hoped the president’s fixation on MS-13 might spur changes that will keep other kids from being attacked and recruited by the gang.

But for any policy to work, it needs to be rooted in reality.

Filed under:

Immigration

The Trump Administration

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/alex-jones-the-democratic-party-uses-ms-13-to-kill-people

Jones, the conspiracy theorist heading up Infowars, told listenerstoday that Democrats use members of the violent gang MS-13 as its personal “meth-dealing army.”

Jones was reacting to remarks House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi made yesterday in response to President Trump describing MS-13 gang members as “animals.” Jones claimed that Pelosi criticized Trump because MS-13 is secretly used by the Democratic party to kill people.

“The Democratic party uses MS-13 to kill people. I have confirmed this with our law enforcement and Army sources. I’ve confirmed it with CIA sources, that the Democratic party uses MS-13 nationwide from Chicago to Dallas, Texas, from Austin, Texas, to LA. They use them as their secret army and they know Trump’s got a war going against MS-13 and has wiped thousands of them out, arrested thousands more,” Jones said.

He continued: “When MS-13 fights back, they’re getting smoked by the U.S. military all over this country right now and this Democrat dirtbag is pissed. Her meth-dealing army is in the crosshairs, you dirty, old, evil, globalist whore!”

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