AP FACT CHECK: Trump overlooks MS-13 gang's American roots [View all]

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

AP FACT CHECK: Trump overlooks MS-13 gang’s American roots

By JOSH BOAK and CALVIN WOODWARD
47 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is portraying the violent MS-13 gang as a collection of immigrants sneaking illegally into the U.S., an account that ignores the organization’s homegrown roots and the fact many of its members are U.S. citizens.

That may suit his attempt to link illegal immigration to criminal behavior, but it’s not an accurate depiction of a gang that blends foreigners and Americans and is therefore partly out of reach of border guards and other immigration authorities. Nor is he telling it straight when he says Democrats have demonstrated indifference to the problem: President Barack Obama took unprecedented actions against the gang.

-snip-

TRUMP: “MS-13 recruits through our broken immigration system, violating our borders, and it just comes right through; whenever they want to come through, they come through. It’s much tougher now since we’ve been there. But we need much better border mechanisms and much better border security. We need the wall.” — Remarks Tuesday at a meeting with law enforcement officials.

THE FACTS: A wall might conceivably slow but can’t stop MS-13, because it is well established in the U.S. and has many U.S. citizens in its ranks — people who can’t be denied entry based on their nationality, or deported.

The gang started in the 1980s in Los Angeles, initially made up largely of refugees and other immigrants from El Salvador, and “spread quickly across the country,” according to a Justice Department fact sheet. An FBI assessment from January 2008 said the gang was operating in at least 42 states and the District of Columbia, roughly the same number of states estimated in 2017. It has also spread outside the U.S.

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/9d0d5bba77df45419c88118f451f7fe3/AP-FACT-CHECK:-Trump-overlooks-MS-13-gang's-American-roots