CENTRAL
ISLIP, N.Y. — The attorney general of the United States, Jeff Sessions,
came on Friday to this Long Island area besieged by the transnational
gang known as MS-13, and in a 20-minute speech to local police
commissioners and sheriffs vowed to eradicate the gang by cracking down
on illegal immigration.
Mr.
Sessions said the gang, which is linked to El Salvador, carries a
threat similar to the Colombian cartels and the mafia. He said it
smuggled gang members across the United States border and recruited
young immigrants.
His
message was familiar, and it bore the wishes of President Trump, who
Mr. Sessions said was “particularly alert to” the violence affecting
Suffolk County, where the bodies of four young men who had been brutally
killed were found near a park on April 13.
The
authorities contend the killings had the markings of MS-13, which would
bring the gang’s body count to 15 in Suffolk County since the beginning
of 2016, the most violent stretch since MS-13 took hold on Long Island
in the late 1990s.
“The
MS-13 motto is kill, rape and control,” Mr. Sessions said at the United
States Courthouse here. “Our motto is justice for victims and
consequences for criminals. That’s how simple it is. Prosecute them, and
after they’ve been convicted, if they’re not here lawfully, they’re
going to be deported.”
Mr.
Sessions talked tough, declaring that “this is the Trump era,” when the
federal government would back law enforcement. He said that he would
add prosecutors to the Eastern District of New York. On Wednesday, Gov.
Andrew M. Cuomo of New York had come to the area to announce that he
would add 25 State Police officers to the gang-fighting efforts.
Mr.
Sessions did not, however, offer assurances to the sizable immigrant
community that its members could report crime to the police without
worrying about their immigration status.
That
has been a concern for local law enforcement officials, who fear that
the Trump administration’s promise to crack down on undocumented
immigrants will destroy trust in the community and hamper
investigations. In presentations throughout the county, the Suffolk
County police commissioner, Timothy Sini, said that if crime victims or
witnesses came forward, the police would not ask about their immigration
status.
Mr.
Sessions called the notion of strict immigration enforcement eroding
trust an “exaggerated argument” and said that people could still call
911 anonymously to report crime.
He
said that prosecuting immigrants who had entered the country illegally
and committed crimes was still the federal government’s priority, and
that the government was not “out seeking witnesses to crimes to deport.”
But he added, “It cannot be that the attorney general grants immunity
contrary to law for people who violate the laws of the United States.”
Mr.
Sessions then met with law enforcement officials from Suffolk County,
Nassau County and the State Police to discuss ways to best fight a gang
whose hallmark weapon is the machete.
Before
Mr. Sessions arrived, about 200 protesters gathered in the early
morning outside the courthouse, across the lawn from the armored cars
and Homeland Security guards.
“I’m
concerned that his response is anti-immigrant, which would lead to
racial profiling Latinos, African-Americans,” said the Rev. Calvin O.
Butts III, the president of the State University of New York at Old
Westbury.
But
Representative Peter T. King, a Republican from the Second District of
New York, which includes Central Islip and neighboring Brentwood, was
visibly angered by the protesters. He had invited Mr. Sessions to Long
Island to meet with law enforcement officials to help solve the problem,
and attended a news conference after Mr. Sessions’s speech.
“They
should be on their knees thanking him, not out there protesting,” Mr.
King said at the news conference. “It’s shameful, it’s disgraceful that
leaders in the community would criticize the attorney general.”
Mr.
Sessions said the first step to combating criminal groups like MS-13
was to secure the border and restore “a lawful system of immigration.”
He noted that the administration was adding immigration judges at the
border to expedite deportations, and criticized the “lawless practice”
of sanctuary cities that do not cooperate with immigration authorities.
(Though, in a reversal, he said that he was “a big admirer” of the New
York Police Department for leading the way in community-based
procedures, and proving that “broken-windows strategies work,” referring
to aggressively policing minor violations to prevent more serious
crimes.)
“We
cannot continue with this transporting across our border illegal
immigrants who have not been properly vetted and actually are part of
criminal organizations,” Mr. Sessions said.
He did not elaborate on how MS-13 smuggles gang members into places like Long Island, but last week, Mr. Sini did.
“There
is no question that MS-13 members who have immigrated illegally here
have recruited individuals coming over,” he said. Mr. Sini added that
intelligence showed that MS-13 was threatening local families to become
legal guardians for gang members.
The
numbers, he said, are indicative of this trend: seven of the 13 MS-13
gang members indicted in a sweep by the United States attorney’s office
in March had entered the country as unaccompanied minors. Ten of those
indicted were undocumented immigrants.
About
4,000 unaccompanied minors have settled in the county in the last
several years after fleeing the violence-racked countries of Central
America, and gang members have preyed on them. About 400 children who
entered the country unaccompanied and relocated to Brentwood are now
enrolled in the school district, Levi McIntyre, the superintendent, said
last week.
“The
best way to tackle the problem is to convince young people to stay away
from the gangs,” Mr. Sessions said. During a news conference, he would
not commit to providing financial resources to Suffolk County for
intervention or prevention programs.
Later,
when he met with the families of two teenage girls from Brentwood who
were killed in September, he did make that promise, said Evelyn
Rodriguez, the mother of one of the girls, Kayla Cuevas, 16.
“He
told me, ‘Rest assured that this is going to be spoken abou
t, talked
about, and there will be more resources and programs to our community
and schools,’” Ms. Rodriguez said. “I’m happy that he did come out and
hear our concerns.”
La
Mara Salvatrucha, shortened to MS-13, originated as a street gang in
Los Angeles in the 1980s, with members who were refugees from El
Salvador. It developed into a transnational organization. Mr. Sessions
said he was told that the gang had headquarters in the jails of El
Salvador and had 30,000 members, 10,000 of them in the United States.
On
paper, the Suffolk police seemed to make progress after the killings of
Ms. Cuevas and the other girl, Nisa Mickens, 15, arresting 170 gang
members. Then came the deaths of the four young men. Two of them were
immigrants from Honduras who had escaped gangs there.
“I
have a message for the gangs that target our young people: We are
targeting you,” Mr. Sessions said. “We are coming after you.”
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