Two more stories involving illegal-alien gangs yet again demonstrate that President Trump is right about the border crisis.
Last week, federal prosecutors in Las Vegas indicted three suspected members of MS-13 on murder charges.
Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested an illegal-alien gang associate who was the beneficiary of catch-and-release.
Murder and More
On Thursday, a federal grand jury indicted three MS-13 members for murder, kidnapping, and racketeering.
The three suspects are Jose Luis Reynaldo Reyes-Castillo, 25, also known as Molesto; Miguel Torres-Escobar, 21, also known Chamilo; and David Arturo Perez-Manchame, 20, also known as Walter Melendez or Herb.
They are members of the Parkview clique of the gang, which operates in Las Vegas.
Federal prosecutors have charged them with “murder in aid of racketeering, using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence and causing death through the use of a firearm,” prosecutors noted.
On January 21, 2018, prosecutors allege, “Reyes-Castillo, Torres-Escobar, and Perez-Manchame kidnapped and murdered Arquimidez Sandoval-Martinez.”
Reyes-Castillo and Torres-Escobar are Salvadoran illegals; Perez-Manchame is a Honduran illegal. The three will be arraigned on May 21.
“MS-13 members are required to commit crimes,” prosecutors noted, “including acts of violence, to maintain membership and discipline within the group.”
The arrest required the cooperation of ICE, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
Deportation Coming
As the grand jury was preparing to indictment of the three illegals, federal immigration cops in South Dakota targeted another criminal alien, this one an associate of the 18th Street Gang, for a trip back home to face a murder charge there, ICE reported.
ICE reported that El Salvador’s government issued an international warrant on October 15 for 25 individuals, including Moises De Jesus Ruiz-Mejia, 25, for “aggravated homicide or attempted homicide of numerous victims, some of whom have yet to be identified.”
“Most of the individuals sought are members of the 18th Street Gang (Sureños 18),” ICE reported, although some, such as Ruiz-Mejia are paros, “individuals who do favors for the gang.”
The warrant went first to Interpol, which sent it to the United States.
Ruiz-Meija slipped across the border on October 14, ICE reported. Border officials had him in custody, but released him on orders “to report to the ICE office in Sioux Falls on a periodic basis beginning in November 2018, pending his immigration court proceedings.”
ICE arrested him on May 1 at his “home” in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. His new home might well be a prison cell in El Salvador.
Trump on MS-13
On February 6 in his State of the Union speech,Trump noted that MS-13 members come and go as they please. He said the gang “now operates in at least 20 different American states, and they almost all come through our southern border.”
The day before the speech, he said, cops collared a member for a murder in New York’s subway. “We are removing these gang members by the thousands,” he said. “But until we secure our border, they’re going to keep streaming right back in.”
After the speech, in a story that sought to portray Trump’s claims as exaggerated, the Washington Post reported that “deportations of suspected gang members have also more than doubled under Trump, reaching nearly 6,000 in fiscal 2018, including 1,332 alleged MS-13 members — an increase of 24 percent from the previous year.”
Helping the gangs grow is the major flood of “unaccompanied minors” who cross the border illegally, the Post reported in 2017. That trend hasn’t stopped, data from Customs and Border Protection show, which means new recruits for MS-13 and other gangs are in abundant supply. Nearly 40,000 such “children” have crossed in fiscal 2019, which began in October.
The Post also described a gang meeting in Virginia that sounded like the notorious Apalachin meeting in 1957, when federal, state, and local cops arrested 62 of the Mafia’s top leaders.
“The MS-13 members came from California, Texas, Ohio, Arizona, Virginia and Maryland, gathering at the Richmond home of the gang’s top leader on the East Coast in 2015,” the Post reported. “Such a high-level MS-13 meeting had not occurred in a decade — and law enforcement officials were listening in as part of a major probe.”
The reason for the meeting? A gang “shot-caller,” Chucky, “relayed directives from MS-13’s leadership in El Salvador: Kill more rival gangs’ members, squash internal rivalries and make more money.”
Photo: AP Images
