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-- 2015 --

September 20: Donald Trump again puzzles Baltimore officials with claim of immigrant gangs

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump believes there are gangs of immigrants roaming the streets of Baltimore causing problems, and he voiced that opinion once more during Wednesday night's Republican debate on CNN.

The claim was swiftly rebuffed in Baltimore, just as it was when Trump first made it during a news conference in Iowa last month.

Howard Libit, a spokesman for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, did not sound surprised Trump had repeated the claim, but disputed it again just the same.

"I'm not sure where Mr. Trump gets his data from regarding our gang issues here in Baltimore," Libit said. "We certainly have significant issues with gangs, but I have not seen any evidence that our gang problems are fueled in any substantial way by undocumented immigrants."

"We have prided ourselves here in Baltimore on welcoming immigrants," Libit said. "We think they are an important and growing segment of our population and contribute greatly to job creation and expanding the diversity of our neighborhoods."
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-trump-baltimore-gangs-20150917-story.html

-- 2017 --

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April 18: Trump Blames Obama for MS-13’s Growth, but the Gang’s Roots Are Older

The gang first took root in Los Angeles in either the late 1970s or early 1980s, gaining a foothold amid the Reagan administration, said Ioan Grillo, a Mexican-based journalist and author of "Gangster Warlords."

... decades of unchecked violence in Central America has only exacerbated the problem.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-blames-obama-ms-13-s-growth-gang-s-roots-n747826

June 14: Trump’s pledge to wipe out MS-13 gang paying off in NY ... Federal officials have rounded up close to 40 accused members of MS-13 in New York City and Long Island in the 30 days following vows by Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to crack down on the gang, known for terrorizing immigrant communities.

Twelve of the reputed MS-13 gang members arrested over the past 30 days crossed the border as unaccompanied minors, the feds said. Now, all are considered illegal immigrants.

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Three of those rounded up recently had Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, an immigration classification available to certain undocumented minors who have been abused, neglected or abandoned by their parents, the feds said.
https://nypost.com/2017/06/14/trumps-pledge-to-wipe-out-ms-13-gang-paying-off-in-ny/

June 26: What Trump Doesn't Understand About MS-13

[A Washington Post report] focused on a few regions in the U.S. where young migrants who’d joined MS-13 were accused of murders that have seized media attention. “The government’s total failure to establish an efficient process and meaningful oversight of the placement of these children has led to the current MS-13 crisis,” [Iowa Senator Chuck] Grassley said at the hearing.
https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2017/06/trump-ms-13/528453/

July 21:
The White House has ordered immigration agents to execute a sweeping crack down on suspected teenage gang members who have entered the country illegally, a report said.

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The ICE crackdown will begin on Sunday and target teenagers who have gang tattoos, wear gang apparel, and frequent “an area notorious for gangs,” according to an internal memo obtained by Reuters.
http://nypost.com/2017/07/21/trump-orders-crack-down-on-suspected-teen-gang-members/

July 28: MS-13 arrests on Long Island as Trump vows to "eradicate" gang ... Two members of the MS-13 gang were arrested in Long Island Thursday and charged in the May shooting death of a man in New York City's Queens borough

The gang, which is believed to have originated in immigrant communities in Los Angeles in the 1980s and then entrenched itself in Central America when its leaders were deported, is infamous for its violent tactics
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ms-13-arrests-on-long-island-as-trump-vows-to-eradicate-gang/

July 28: ... several people familiar with [the MS-13 gang], including two gang members themselves, [said] they think Trump's crackdown on immigrants is actually making MS-13 stronger because witnesses [to gang violence and murders] are more reluctant to come forward for fear of being deported.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/28/us/ms-13-gang-long-island-trump/?iid=ob_article_organicsidebar_expansion

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July 28: President Donald Trump is traveling to Long Island Friday to discuss efforts to combat the violent MS-13 gang, which his administration has made a key talking point in its push for a hard-line immigration agenda.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/28/politics/donald-trump-ms-13/?iid=ob_lockedrail_bottomlist

July 28: ‘Going full circle’: Trump’s MS-13 gang crackdown risks unleashing new cycle of violence ... The notorious gang has become a focal point of Trump’s immigration effort – but critics say innocent people are being swept up, causing greater upheaval and violence
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/28/trump-brentwood-ms13-gang-el-salvador-crime-violence

July 31:
Long Island, New York ... in recent years has become a deadly enclave for MS-13, a notoriously brutal street gang with close ties to Central America. But as officers work to halt the carnage and the Trump administration gears up its crackdown on undocumented immigrants, students and schools have found themselves in the spotlight.

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... at least nine teens in Suffolk County, Long Island, ... the New York Civil Liberties Union said were falsely accused of gang affiliation and sent to secure immigration detention facilities. In a letter last week, NYCLU attorneys accused the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement of detaining the students, who had not previously been charged with criminal gang activity, without conducting an independent investigation. The office oversees undocumented children who enter the country without their parents.

Federal law requires the office to detain children in the “least restrictive” conditions, unless an independent investigation determines they pose a threat or face criminal charges
https://www.the74million.org/article/undocumented-students-arrested-and-locked-up-in-new-york-as-trump-cracks-down-on-immigrant-gangs/

August 2: Trump Is Locking Up and Threatening to Deport Children Based on Mere Suspicion of Gang Affiliation

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... a closer look at who the Trump administration is actually targeting shows that these so-called “animals” are sometimes children who have not even been accused of any crime. Police from Suffolk County are collaborating with the Trump administration to target immigrant children for arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement when the police are “not in a position to make a criminal arrest.” This means that kids who the police department knows it does not have the evidence to criminally prosecute are nonetheless being summarily snatched up by ICE, torn from their communities, and shipped to jail-like facilities, hundreds or thousands of miles from their family and immigration lawyers.
https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/immigrants-rights-and-detention/trump-locking-and-threatening-deport-children

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August 11: Trump Administration Accused Of Falsely Saying Immigrant Teens Have Gang Ties
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/11/542960660/trump-administration-accused-of-falsely-accusing-immigrant-teens-of-gang-ties

August 26: Ferguson Mayor fires back at Trump’s claim of ‘gangs of illegal immigrants’

Ferguson Mayor James Knowles has responded to the attack on his city during an interview this morning on FOX 2.

"I'm assuming that Donald Trump is saying that from his extensive experience in St. Louis and in Ferguson.  He has never been here as far as I know.  I've never seen any roving bands of illegal immigrants or gangs in Ferguson.  I think he's just trying to find headlines and we just gave him one."
http://fox2now.com/2015/08/26/trump-says-gangs-in-st-louis-ferguson-are-filled-with-illegal-immigrants/

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September 27: The idea that the only way to deal with violent crime offenders is to “hunt them down,” while white opiate drug offenders deserve prayers of relief can’t be separated from the optics of race. Medical experts say that gun violence should be treated as a public health issue. Cities are increasingly recognizing that this might be necessary. More cities could treat it this way if federal health funding could be applied to gun violence—which currently, it can’t. So why is Sessions still treating gang members as if they can be incarcerated and deported away rather than rehabilitated?
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/09/if-we-talked-about-drugs-the-way-we-talked-about-gun-violence/540891/

October 6: New ICE tactic raises questions about due process ... Immigration attorneys are noticing a new trend in courtrooms: clients are being accused of gang affiliation on thin or specious evidence, and it's used against them in deportation proceedings.
https://thinkprogress.org/ice-targets-gangs-6775356473a8/

October 11:
Don’t believe the Trump administration: MS-13 is not ravaging the United States

The Central American gang is a big problem in Central America — and an object of scare tactics here.


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Immigration rates are slowing, and violent crime is at historic record lows, yet the rhetoric about both could not be more heated. The number of new legal immigrants leveled off starting with the Great Recession, while the absolute number of unauthorized immigrants has been falling since 2007. Crime rates have been dropping sharply for far longer, especially for violent crimes, which are just half as common as in 1993, according to FBI statistics.

Yet if you didn’t know better, you might think we’re living in a crime-ravaged dystopia out of “RoboCop,” where foreign gangs prey on fearful citizens in lawless sanctuary cities.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/10/11/dont-believe-the-trump-administration-ms-13-is-not-ravaging-the-united-states/?utm_term=.fbe508836973

November 16: More than 200 MS-13 members were arrested in a major Trump administration gang sweep

The Trump administration announced a major gang sweep Thursday, with the arrest of more than 200 members of the violent street gang MS-13.

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Officials from the Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department said "Operation Raging Bull" was conducted across the United States from Oct. 8 to Nov. 11, and concluded with the arrest of 214 members of MS-13.

"We will not rest until every member, associate and leader of MS-13 has been held accountable for their crimes," said Thomas Horman, director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-big-round-up-of-ms-13-gang-members-in-us-2017-11

November 18: Trump’s Panama tower used for money laundering by organised crime gangs, reports say

By day it glints in the tropical sunshine, an apparently shining testament to the US president’s business savvy. But a curious thing happens at night. Many of the lights stay off. The restaurants are near deserted; the corridors silent. The skyscraper appears to be largely empty – a dark tower.

Many of those who bought the condos, it turns out, did so not to live there but allegedly to launder illicit money – Russian gangster money, drug cartel money, people-smuggling money.

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A joint Reuters – NBC News investigation published on Friday together with a report by the charity Global Witness said the skyscraper had ties to international organised crime.

Trump may not have intended to facilitate criminal activity but the Panama tower “aligned” his financial interests with crooks, said Global Witness.
http://www.scmp.com/news/world/americas/article/2120510/trumps-panama-tower-used-money-laundering-organised-crime-gangs

-- 2018 --

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January 9: Trump’s attacks on humanitarian immigration just became a full-blown war ... He’s trying to force 260,000 immigrants to return to El Salvador after decades in the United States.

No president wanted to end humanitarian immigration. Then came Donald Trump.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/1/8/16862898/trump-tps-salvador-ms13-immigrants

January 24: Trump: Sanctuary Cities are Gangs' Best Friends  ... President Donald Trump says mayors who boycotted a White House event over an administration crackdown on so-called sanctuary cities are placing the needs of illegal immigrants above citizens.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/c/trump-sanctuary-cities-are-gangs-best-friends/vp-AAv7Ywa

January 30:
Trump Left Out Some Crucial Facts During His Racist MS-13 Rant

... Trump failed to mention that MS-13 is actually a gang that was born in Los Angeles in the 1980s. It only spread abroad because of the U.S. government, and experts have found scant evidence that its American branch is primarily made up of immigrants.
https://splinternews.com/trump-left-out-some-crucial-facts-during-his-racist-ms-1822577051

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January 30: [Fact checker:] "What the Border Patrol and ICE have done, we have sent thousands, and thousands, and thousands of MS-13, horrible people out of this country or into our prisons."

But Trump's claim is not borne out by the statistics released by his administration.

According to the administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement made 796 MS-13-related arrests and Customs and Border Protection made 228 MS-13 arrests in the fiscal year that ended at the end of September 2017.

In November, ICE announced a major gang crackdown, which 214 MS-13 arrests nationwide. As part of that, Attorney General Jeff Sessions noted the US "worked with our partners in Central America to arrest and charge some 4,000 MS-13 members," which the White House pointed to as back-up for Trump's claim. But not all of those individuals were arrested in the US or placed in federal prisons.

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The efforts to combat the brutal MS-13 gang are not new. Since 2005, there have been roughly 60,000 arrests as part of a continual nationwide gang crackdown operation led by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations with other US law enforcement. Of those arrests, 7,000 have been MS-13.

ICE said the 800 arrests in FY17 were an 83% increase over the year before.

The Justice Department estimates there are roughly 10,000 MS-13 members nationwide, a fraction of the estimated 1.4 million members of US gangs nationally.

In its year-end statistics, ICE did not break down its deportations by type of criminality. .
https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/30/politics/state-of-the-union-address-fact-check/index.html

January 30: What is MS-13, the violent gang Trump vowed to target?

MS-13 recruits are middle- and high-school students, predominantly in immigrant communities, who are said to risk violent retribution if they leave.

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The gang was sanctioned as a transnational criminal organization by the Treasury Department in 2012.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/01/30/what-is-ms-13-violent-gang-trump-vowed-to-target.html

January 31: The Gang Trump Named Is Actually Homegrown ... But he's using it for his anti-immigration agenda.
https://www.inverse.com/article/40740-what-is-ms-13-the-gang-trump-named

January 31: President Trump's Immigration Crackdown Will Only Make the MS-13 Gang Stronger

In his State of the Union speech, President Trump blamed children crossing the border for gang violence perpetrated by MS-13 in suburban schools, by telling the story of two girls killed by an MS-13 member in Long Island in 2016. MS-13 is a street gang that has blossomed in towns like the island’s Hempstead and Langley Park, Maryland. For Trump, the gang is a favorite adversary. He’s called on law enforcement to be “rough” with its members, most of them teenagers who have fled violence in Central America. “They are animals,” he said in a July speech.

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His frequent focus on this one street gang belies the numbers. Violent crime, including homicides, is at all-time lows in Long Island. That doesn’t mean MS-13 isn’t a problem. Officials say the gang is behind several of the 37 murders there last year.

What the police [said] they needed most to help them fight the gangs was help for the schools. What they kept getting were immigration crackdowns.
http://time.com/5127932/donald-trump-ms-13-gang-immigration/

January 30: President Trump's numerous references Tuesday night to the administration's fight against the brutal street gang Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13 were warranted.

Trump's Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security have struck hard at the Salvadoran criminal organization, illustrated by last year's arrests of 13 gang members suspected in seven murders in New York.

... the president's claim that the administration has removed or imprisoned "thousands and thousands and thousands" of the gang members during the year-long crackdown appears to be an overstatement of the effort.

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In Tuesday speech in Kentucky, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recounted the government's anti-crime effort, claiming that Justice had secured convictions against "nearly 500 human traffickers and 1,200 gang members." Sessions also said that authorities worked with "our international allies to arrest or charge more than 4,000 MS-13 members."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/01/30/state-union-fact-check-claims-ms-13-crackdown-overstate-anti-gang-effort/1081486001/

January 30: Former Gang Members Offer Advice on How to Combat MS-13
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/former-gang-members-offer-advice-on-how-to-combat-ms-13

January 31: Kamala Harris: Trump "Scapegoating and Fear-Mongering" To Equate MS-13 and DREAMers

"MS-3 is an example of some of the worst of criminal gang behavior," Sen. Harris said. "To equate that with Dreamers and DACA was completely irresponsible. And it was scapegoating and fear-mongering. And it was wrong."

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"It was wrong technically, in terms of the nature and character of these populations," she added. "And it was wrong because that is not what leaders are supposed to do. We're not supposed to convince the American public of policy because we make them afraid. And that is what this president apparently thinks he needs to do, and it is irresponsible."
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/01/30/kamala_harris_trump_scapegoating_and_fear-mongering_to_equate_ms-13_and_dreamers.html

February 1: Trump’s focus on MS-13 may not reflect Arizona’s gang reality

An Arizona Criminal Justice Commission report in 2015 ... showed a smaller MS-13 impact. Of 59 Arizona law enforcement agencies surveyed, 28.1 percent reported low-level MS-13 activity in their jurisdiction, and more than 60 percent said the gang’s activity was “not applicable.”
http://ktar.com/story/1928618/trumps-focus-on-ms-13-may-not-reflect-arizonas-gang-reality/?src=ilaw

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March 27: Police arrest five MS-13 gang members in connection to murder of Izaak Towery, nine others in Las Vegas
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/missing-in-america/police-arrest-five-ms-13-gang-members-connection-murder-izaak-n860591

May 17: US President Donald Trump has said immigrant gang members are "not people" but "animals".

He was responding during a White House event to a point made by a California sheriff about the MS-13 gang, which was started in the 1980s by immigrants from Central America.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-44148697/trump-immigrant-gangs-animals-not-people

May 17: President Trump on Thursday defended his use of the word “animals” to describe dangerous criminals trying to cross into the United States illegally, saying that he had been referring to members of the brutal transnational gang MS-13 when he used language critics called inappropriate.

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“I’m referring, and you know I’m referring, to the MS-13 gangs that are coming in,” Mr. Trump told a reporter who asked him about the remark, a day after using the term during a White House meeting about immigration. “We have laws that are laughed at on immigration. So when the MS-13 comes in, when the other gang members come into our country, I refer to them as animals. And guess what — I always will.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/17/us/trump-animals-ms-13-gangs.html

June 16: Trump accuses Democrats of protecting MS-13 gang members: 'They want them to be left alone'
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/06/16/president-trump-accuses-democrats-protecting-ms-13-gang-members-want-them-to-be-left-alone.html

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June 25: I’ve Been Reporting on MS-13 for a Year. Here Are the 5 Things Trump Gets Most Wrong.

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.
https://www.propublica.org/article/ms-13-immigration-facts-what-trump-administration-gets-wrong

July 3: Despite Hyperaggressive Rhetoric, Trump Doesn’t Have a Comprehensive MS-13 Strategy
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/trump-ms-13-strategy-isnt-very-comprehensive-despite-talk.html

September 26:
Bandidos biker gang president sentenced to life in prison

The sentencing comes after the Bandidos president was found guilty of directing a violent racketeering and drug trafficking operation.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bandidos-biker-gang-president-sentenced-life-prison-n913561


November 6: How the US helped create Trump's 'violent animals'

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There is no question the MS-13 gang must be stopped. It is a vile organization of hoodlums with no regard for life. But to entirely turn our backs on those who are trying to escape from being terrorized by the gang ignores the role that our government played in its monstrous evolution.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/19/opinions/ms-13-trump-america-ice-salvador/index.html


December 19: Federal judge strikes down Trump asylum rules for domestic and gang violence victims

In a ruling Wednesday, Judge Emmet Sullivan struck down large portions of Justice Department policies that made it harder for immigrants to claim asylum.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/federal-judge-strikes-down-trump-asylum-rules-domestic-gang-violence-n949936


-- 2019 --

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-- 2020 --

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