They were beaten with wooden clubs and their bodies were butchered with machetes. In April, the bodies of four young men, ages 16 to 20, were discovered in a park in Central Islip. Last September, two teenage girls from Brentwood were beaten to death in a case that put Nassau and Suffolk counties on the map as an epicenter of MS-13 activity. In the last two years, the FBI says MS-13 has committed more than 20 slayings on Long Island, drawing national attention to the gang’s growing presence. And in recent months here, authorities say the gang has been on a killing spree. for decades, the level of violence and activity has risen considerably in the last two years, according to the FBI. While MS-13 has had a presence in the U.S. “If you want to be looking at strategies that need to change and change right away, sanctuary cities would be at the top of that list.”
“As far as reporting crime is concerned, the biggest impediment as I said earlier, is sanctuary cities, where … illegal immigrant gang members are released from a prison or jail and then we have to go searching for them at great costs … and at great personal risk to the officers. “The reality is that we are removing MS-13 and other criminal gang members in very large numbers, and they are hurting,” the official said. “‘So what are you going to do? Who’s going to protect you?’ And that’s what really strikes many of us.”īut a senior Trump administration official disputed that thinking. “I think it’s emboldening them, because this gives them the opportunity to tell immigrants, ‘What are you gonna do? Are you going to report us? They’re deporting other innocent people … (so) they’re going to associate you with us by you coming forward,’” said Walter Barrientos, Long Island coordinator with Make the Road, an immigrant advocacy group. “People can get deported, so they don’t call the police. “It’s not like before, where … they (the gang) were more hidden,” said Margarita, adding that a decade after fleeing violence in El Salvador she has never felt more afraid. Seth Wenig/APĪnd several people familiar with MS-13, including two gang members themselves, told CNN they think Trump’s crackdown on immigrants is actually making MS-13 stronger because witnesses are more reluctant to come forward for fear of being deported. Authorities believe MS-13 was behind the killings. Investigators comb woods where the mutilated bodies of four young men were discovered in late April in Central Islip. President Trump has vowed to wipe them out and will visit Long Island Friday to discuss his plans. It’s estimated to have 10,000 members nationwide.
suburbs and here on Long Island, just an hour or so east of New York City. The violent gang known as Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, originated decades ago among Salvadoran immigrants in Los Angeles and has since built a criminal network that extends across the US, with thriving pockets in the Washington, D.C. She witnessed the first attack on her son, on the street outside their home, and says she’s too afraid to go to the police for fear of deportation. But here they have,” said the woman, who is undocumented and asked to be called only “Margarita” for her safety. “I think it’s worse (in the US) because over there they hadn’t tried to kill him. He survived and has been in hiding for the last few weeks, but his mother is terrified. They slashed him in the stomach with a machete, the gang’s weapon of choice. The second time, they attacked the 19-year-old as he was on his way to work. Now, in his new home, they were upping the stakes. The gang had harassed him in El Salvador because he refused to join them. The young man had immigrated from El Salvador three months earlier to join his mother in Nassau County, Long Island. The first time members of the MS-13 street gang attacked Margarita’s teenage son in suburban New York, they beat him with a baseball bat.