When you think of the street gang MS-13, what do you see?
Maybe, something like this.
Or this.
But what if I told you the typical MS-13 gang member in the US actually looks like one of
these young men on Facebook?
They're around 18 years old, they like selfies, and memes about the Joker.
And the young men in these photos have all been charged with or convicted of horrific
crimes.
"The gang has committed 27 murders."
"Taking advantage of illegal immigrants."
MS-13 has become notorious for committing some brutal crimes.
But, that's not all we hear about them.
"MS-13 takes advantage of glaring loopholes in our immigration laws."
"Violated our borders."
"Let MS-13 all over our country." "Not with me, we're taking them out by
the thousands."
The Trump Administration has made MS-13 the
most visible symbol of why the United States needs tougher immigration policies -- especially
as a reason to point a finger at Central American immigrants.
But, here's the thing -- MS-13 was born right here in the United States.
In the 1980s, a US-backed war against the Salvadoran rebels raged in El Salvador.
Nearly a million Salvadorans escaped the violence and fled to the US as undocumented immigrants.
"There to protect themselves from American gang violence, young Salvadorans formed MS-13."
This is 100 percent an American born gang.
It comes out of the Salvadoran immigrant community in Los Angeles.
You know, a group of teenagers hanging out smoking pot listening to rock music.
They called themselves the "Stoners," later "Mara Salvatrucha," and eventually,
MS-13.
At the time, they were mostly juvenile delinquents involved in street crimes, who were stuffed
into American jails.
Eventually, in the 90s and early 2000s, the US sent large numbers of convicted immigrants
back to El Salvador.
"Today 103 dangerous individuals are off the streets and will no longer be a threat
to those communities or the United States."
But the strategy of deporting the MS-13 problem - didn't quite succeed.
"One of the most violent street gangs in
the country, the gang is known as Mara Salvatrucha."
"What the FBI is now calling the most dangerous gang in America."
"Violent criminals who represent a more immediate threat to Americans here at home
than terrorists."
MS-13 members eventually set up cliques on the East Coast of the US, concentrated in
the suburbs of Boston, DC, and Long Island.
I've been reporting on Long Island for a year and the MS-13 that I'm seeing on the ground
there has almost nothing in common with the MS-13 as portrayed by the government.
For one, the Trump administration presents MS-13 as a drug cartel.
"They're drug smugglers."
But that's not really the case.
MS-13 is not really involved with the international drug trade.
The MS-13 members that I've been following are working after school jobs.
They're living with their parents.
They get around Long Island on bicycles because they can't afford cars.
It's not the kind of gang that you really get any money from.
MS-13 isn't a highly organized criminal group -- it doesn't have a central leader
or global ambitions.
But it's been classified as a "transnational criminal organization."
The Obama-era Treasury Department put the group on a list of sanctioned organizations
with groups like the Mexican Zetas and the Japanese Yakuza.
But...
The organization doesn't have that kind of sophistication to really play with the
major players.
Yet MS-13 alarmism has persisted -- for decades.
"MS-13 has the potential to be far more dangerous than gangs like the Bloods and Crips."
"One of the fastest growing gangs in our nation."
"It's a fact MS-13 is the fastest growing gang in the United States."
Even though MS-13 has stuck around, it's not actually growing.
The estimates of MS-13 size in the U.S. have kind of ping ponged between 5,000 and 10,000
for the last 10 to 15 years.
There's no indication that we're seeing a bigger surge of MS-13 than we'd seen in the
past.
But even based on the government's rough estimates, MS-13 accounts for a tiny fraction
of street gang members in the US, which are said to be about 1.4 million.
Of that, the Crips, based primarily in Southern California, have an estimated 35,000 members.
Lesser known groups, like Chicago's Gangster Disciples, have about 50,000 members.
But MS-13 is likely the gang we hear about the most.
Now, with Central American immigrants seeking asylum at the US Border, the Trump administration
has raised a new concern about MS-13 posing as fake families.
"The kids are being used by pawns. Those are traffickers, those are smugglers, that
is MS-13. Those are criminals, those are abusers."
In reality, out of over 30,000 families apprehended at the border this fiscal year, only 200 were
fake families and there's no evidence to tie any of them to MS-13.
The administration has said that it is carrying out aggressive immigration raids to pick up
MS-13 members...
"We are sending MS-13 out by the thousands."
But they may actually be picking up the gang's
victims.
The targets of MS-13 violence are the exact same Salvadoran-American immigrants who are
the targets of MS-13's recruitment.
It can be hard to tell who's really in the gang and who's just adopting gang style.
Kids in high school will wear Chicago Bulls t-shirts or will wear Nike Cortez sneakers.
And that is a sign of the gang but it's also just a sign of a high school kid trying
to look tough.
It's the same thing you saw in the 90s, you saw kids who would have like a blue bandana
to try to act like Snoop Dogg, but that didn't mean that they were Crips.
If we're trying to send a message that we don't want MS-13 in the U.S, but that message
comes at the cost of hurting the exact same people who MS-13 is victimizing, is that really
the right way to go forward?
For any policy to work, it's worth keeping the facts front and center.
MS-13 is not invading the country.
They're neither a new phenomenon nor growing in numbers.
But they have committed acts of horrific violence, mostly against other immigrants, in specific
communities.
And that -- is still an American problem.
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