The U.S. Justice Department is taking the fight against the Central American street gang known as MS-13 to its home turf – the so-called “northern triangle” countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
With roots among war refugees from El Salvador in Los Angeles in the 1980s, MS-13, also known by its Spanish name “Mara Salvatrucha,” has morphed into one of the largest and most violent gangs in the United States, boasting an estimated 10,000 members.
But much of its leadership remains in El Salvador from where they plan and orchestrate “some significant murders” in the U.S., cases that local prosecutors are unable to investigate, according to Kenneth Blanco, assistant attorney general in charge of the department’s criminal division.
As part of its fight against the gang, the Justice Department’s criminal division coordinates with the Central American governments to gather leads and evidence for prosecuting gang members in the United States and to target others “before they ever reach U.S. ports of entry,” Blanco told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on MS-13 Wednesday.
“The department’s ultimate goal is to dismantle the entire leadership structure of MS-13, including those members who reside overseas,” Blanco said.
FBI vetted foreign investigative units in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to probe MS-13 and other gang members as well as locals responsible for criminal activity in the United States, while another Justice Department unit sends attorneys overseas to combat gangs, cartels, financial crimes, public corruption and other transnational criminal activities, he said.
“You can help us take the fight where it emanates from to make sure those people never get here and those who are here go back,” Blanco said.
Terrorist organization?
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has called the gang “one of the gravest threats to American safety,” and in April told a television interviewer that it could be designated a terrorist organization.
Sessions later said he wasn’t certain whether the gang, the first street gang to be labeled a transnational criminal organization by the United States, meets the State Department’s standards to be designated as a terrorist organization.
The Justice Department’s focus on MS-13 as part of its new tough on crime approach has drawn criticism that the administration is using it as a pretext to crack down on undocumented immigrants.
Blanco said MS-13 actively recruits members among immigrant communities from the northern triangle, including youngsters and recently arrived unaccompanied minors.
In recent years, only a handful of unaccompanied minors arrested after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border have had gang roots. Of the nearly 250,000 unaccompanied minors from the Central American countries arrested since 2012 – the majority of them between the ages of 14 and 17 — only 160 were gang members, Carla Provost, acting chief of the U.S. Border Patrol told the Senate panel.
The number of Central American minors arrested at the U.S. Southwest border reached nearly 60,000 in fiscal year 2016, but it has plummeted this year as law enforcement has clamped down on illegal immigration. In May, the Border Patrol arrested 1,493 unaccompanied minors from Central America, down 73 percent from 5,594 in May 2016, according to Provost.
Last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made 32,709 criminal arrests, including 4,606 arrests of transnational gang members such as MS-13, according to Derek Benner, acting executive associate director of ICE.
During the current fiscal year, ICE has deported 155,338 to 181 countries. Fifty-five percent of the deportees had criminal convictions, it says.
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