Five members of the infamous transnational gang <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/ms-13-gang">MS-13</a> were found guilty late last week of the gruesome 2016 murder of two <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/virginia">Virginia</a> teenagers.
The gang members, believing a 14-year-old and 17-year-old to be part of a rival gang, “lured” them on separate occasions to remote areas and violently murdered the adolescents, according to the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/department-of-justice">Department of Justice</a>. 
According to the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, the gang members convinced the unnamed 17-year-old to go to a park in Fairfax County, Virginia, on August 28, 2016. Once there, they <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/pr/jury-finds-ms-13-members-guilty-roles-murdering-two-juveniles">killed</a> him by “stabbing and chopping him more than 100 times with knives, a machete, and a pickaxe.”
Roughly a month later, they murdered again, killing a 14-year-old they claimed was a police informant. He was invited to a gang meeting and later driven to the same Fairfax County Park by members of MS-13, according to authorities.
“They also filmed the murder with a cell phone so that they could prove to gang leaders in the United States and in El Salvador that they deserved to be promoted in rank. Then, once S.A.A.T. was dead, the gang broke his legs and tied him up with his own pajama pants so that he would fit into the shallow grave that was dug for him that night,” the DOJ reported. 
The MS-13 members found guilty of the murders included Elmer Zelaya Martinez, Ronald Herrera Contreras, Henry Zelaya Martinez, Pablo Velasco Barrera, and Duglas Ramirez Ferrera. In addition, nine others charged in connection to the killings have already pled guilty for their roles.
Each of the five came from El Salvador and faced kidnapping and murder charges. They could each be sentenced to life in prison. 
The investigation into the murders involved multiple entities, including the FBI’s Washington division, Fairfax County police, ICE, the U.S. Marshall’s Service, Alexandria police, Prince William County police, and several police departments.
MS-13 is a transnational gang that originated in Los Angeles but has spread <a href="https://insightcrime.org/el-salvador-organized-crime-news/mara-salvatrucha-ms-13-profile/">throughout</a> the United States, Europe, and Central America. The gang is known for violence and has a heavy presence in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. 
Just last month, another Virginia jury <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/pr/jury-convicts-seven-ms-13-members-and-associates-sex-trafficking-minor">convicted</a> several MS-13 members for the sex trafficking of a 13-year-old girl. The gang made money by selling her for sex and brutally abused her, at one point beating her with a baseball bat 26 times, according to authorities.
Those members also face life in prison.

Close-Up Of Closed Door Of Building

MS-13 Members Found Guilty In Brutal Murders Of Virginia Teens

MS-13 Members Found Guilty In Murders Of Virginia Teenagers

Department of Justice

MS-13 Gang

Violent Crime

Virginia

Members of the violent MS-13 gang, as well as members of other gangs, are using the migrant caravans to slip into the U.S.
U.S. Border Patrol Agent Chief Matthew Hudak tweeted Friday that officials had captured five gang members the previous week in Laredo, Texas.
“5 gang members in 7 days! #Laredo Sector #USBP agents arrested a total of 5 gang members in the last week, including an #ms13 &amp; two 18th Street gang members. They attempt to evade arrest by exploiting the influx of migrants attempting to enter our country,” Hudak tweeted.
The MS-13 and 18th Street gangs are both violent gangs originating from Central America. They have also entered the U.S., committing murders in multiple East Coast states, most prominently New York. Two years ago, Suffolk County, New York, authorities said they had pretty much <a href="https://abc7ny.com/ms-13-suffolk-county-long-island-gang/5771962/">eliminated</a> the gang from the area.
The Daily Wire has reported previously on the violence caused by the gangs in the U.S. In January 2020, a member of the MS-13 gang who had been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ms-13-gang-member-deported-five-times-found-in-u-s-again">deported five times</a> previously was apprehended once again. The gang member had a history of drug offenses, grand theft auto, theft, and burglary.
One of the most prominent stories involving the gang involved attacking a man and his friends with a machete. As The Daily Wire reported:
<blockquote>Manuel Amaya-Alvarez, a 22-year-old El Salvadorian national who was in the U.S. illegally, was sentenced to 20 years on November 14, according to a press release from the Department of Justice (DOJ). Amaya-Alvarez was one of several MS-13 gang members involved in the attack, which resulted in serious physical injuries to two men and the death of a female.
Amaya-Alvarez admitted in September 2017 that he and his fellow gang members planned to “take out” four individuals at the Running Bear Park just outside of Dallas, in Irving, Texas. Members of the gang lured a man they believed was part of a rival gang to the park, claiming they wanted to purchase his tattoo machine. When the man arrived at the park with two other men and a woman, Amaya-Alvarez and another gang member greeted the group.
The group of four was taken into a wooded area, where other gang members armed with a shotgun as well as machetes and clubs revealed themselves. The four victims were surrounded and forced to their knees. The MS-13 gang members robbed the four individuals and then began attacking them.
The three men were able to escape, but two of them suffered blunt force trauma and cuts from the gang’s weapons. The woman, according to the DOJ, “was savagely maimed and left for dead.”</blockquote>
In Seattle in October 2019, a gang member <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/another-brutal-gang-slaying-in-sanctuary-city-seattle-yet-police-still-wont-work-with-ice">admitted to killing</a> his teenage friend with a baseball bat and then working with another gang member to chop the body into pieces using a machete. Seattle, a sanctuary city, continues to refuse to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/05/01/ms-13-other-gang-members-exploit-migrant-wave-to-cross-into-us/">reported</a> that Border Patrol agents in California last month arrested “a documented MS-13 gang member” who had been traveling with Salvadoran migrants to the U.S. Border.

MS-13 Gang Members Using Migrant Caravans To Sneak Into U.S.: Report

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele told Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday night that high levels of immigration to the United States are not a good thing for the U.S. and was even worse for nations in Latin America, which he said are being gutted of the very people that are needed to build strong economies in those countries.
Bukele said that the surge north has been caused by three factors, including a lack of economic opportunities, a lack of security, and incentives provided in the United States. Bukele also suggested that the policies on the border and enforcement of immigration matters by U.S. authorities, or lack thereof, was a factor in what is happening.
Bukele said that he has seen improvement in his country as they have started to get a handle on the rampant violent crime afflicting his nation, which is a hotbed of MS-13 gang activity.
&#8220;If you don&#8217;t provide for your people, economic opportunities, if your economy is doing bad, if your security is doing bad, people are going leave, and you&#8217;re going to go and try to find a rich country, right? They&#8217;re not going to leave for Guatemala. They want to go to the United States,&#8221; Bukele said. &#8220;So, that makes this country dependent on immigration because you become a net exporter of people. You&#8217;re not exporting products or services, you&#8217;re exporting people.&#8221;
&#8220;So, that makes your economy dependent on that because those people send money back to their home countries which is not a good economic formula,&#8221; Bukele continued. &#8220;That makes the economies dependent of that. So, when you keep this country dependent on that, the economy is like a vicious cycle, so it&#8217;s bad for the United States because immigration will go up and it&#8217;s bad for our country because people leaving the country will go as well so it&#8217;s bad for both of us.&#8221;
WATCH:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="President of El Salvador talks immigration crisis with Tucker Carlson" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_pAzth4f-vs?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
TRANSCRIPT:
<blockquote>TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: Mr. President, thanks for joining us.
NAYIB BUKELE, PRESIDENT OF EL SALVADOR: Thank you for inviting me. 
CARLSON: So there are an estimated 2 million Salvadorans living United States.
BUKELE: Maybe a little more.
CARLSON. Maybe more and more coming now. Why do you think so many people have moved from this country to the U.S.? 
BUKELE: Well, it&#8217;s obvious. I mean, our country has failed to provide two basic things, which are the two main drivers of immigration, which is the lack of economic opportunity and the lack of security. If, I mean, most people won&#8217;t like, doesn&#8217;t want to leave their country.
CARLSON: Right. 
BUKELE: They, they like their culture, they like their food. They like their weather. I mean, it&#8217;s it&#8217;s their country, they have their family members here, their friends, they leave, most people leave their country because of two main reasons. And those are the two main reasons. And if you add up the civil war we had in the 80s, well, that was the main driver at the beginning. And then you have people, you know, that have cousins over there. And then the cousins says, oh, come here, you will have a job here.  
CARLSON: Right.
BUKELE: And there&#8217;s relative security, based on what you have over there and what you have here. And so those are the main drivers of immigration that our country has failed to provide security and economic opportunity. So people leave, so people leave. 
CARLSON: So, but if the richest country in the world says if you cross over the border, we will give you free health care, free education, all these benefits, I mean that&#8217;s a draw, isn&#8217;t it?
BUKELE: Of course, it&#8217;s an incentive. I mean, everything is everything life is pros and cons, right? 
CARLSON: Yes. 
BUKELE: So you have for immigration, you have a con, that probably you don&#8217;t know the language or you have to, the journey is a difficult one, you may die in the journey. But if in the end, they will receive a lot of things, of course, it&#8217;s a, the the pros go up and the cons go down. So it depends. It&#8217;s an incentive game here. And if, for example, if here in El Salvador we have better jobs and better security, it&#8217;s less, it&#8217;s less of an incentive, and you can see it in the numbers. We haven&#8217;t changed the country 180 degrees in two years, in 1 year and 9 months, we have been in government, of course. But if you see the numbers two years ago, you see the numbers now, immigration from El Salvador has gone down. And it&#8217;s a couple of reasons, but one of the reasons is that, we have improved security by 75%, I mean the homicide rate has down by 75% and the violent crimes have gone down by 75%. And economic opportunities are a little better than what they were two years ago. And there&#8217;s more, there&#8217;s a little more hope here that the future is going to be better. So that lowers the numbers that way. That&#8217;s why you have caravans of 10,000 people going out of Honduras, and you don&#8217;t have any caravans going out from El Salvador. But two years ago, El Salvador was bigger than Honduras in immigration. So you have incentives and drivers here, like I told you before,  economic opportunities and security, and you have incentives over there. What you will find at the border and what you will find inside and with and with law enforcement over there.
CARLSON: Losing energetic risk taking people is obviously bad for your country, you want to keep people like that here. Do you resent the fact that the United States has offered all these incentives for people to leave your country and go there? 
BUKELE: No, I&#8217;ll never resent that. But I just think that for a country, it&#8217;s not profitable to get the people out. First, it&#8217;s immoral. I mean, you need to provide for your people, right? 
CARLSON: Yeah.
BUKELE: That&#8217;s a moral issue. But you also have an economic issue. If you send your hard working people, and you&#8217;re talented people and people that want to work and want to risk it just to go and work, You want to keep them here, because those will be the drivers of your economy. You don&#8217;t want them there. So they could take remittance, which will be a small portion of what they will earn and will they produce. You want them to produce here, but you&#8217;re talking about problems that have been there, and not only El Salvador but in a lot of countries in Latin America for the last four decades. And this immigration thing it has is just feeding on dependency on immigration of the countries that drive it. So it&#8217;s not good for for the United States and it&#8217;s not good for El Salvador. The best thing for both of us is to keep our people here and to provide for our people right here and to provide for our people right here in our country and that&#8217;s what people here want. 
CARLSON: Yes. 
BUKELE: So at the end it&#8217;s not, I won&#8217;t resent it of course, but I think that it&#8217;s better if we can keep our people, that&#8217;s our job and morally that&#8217;s the thing we have to do. 
CARLSON: Explain quickly if you would, what you said is not good for the United States to become dependent on immigration. What do you mean by that?
BUKELE: No, no. Latin American countries. If you don&#8217;t provide for your people, economic opportunities, if your economy is doing bad, if your security is doing bad, people are going leave, and you&#8217;re going to go and try to find a rich country, right? They&#8217;re not going to leave for Guatemala. &#8230; They want to go to the United States. So, that makes this country dependent on immigration because you become a net exporter of people. You&#8217;re not exporting products or services, you&#8217;re exporting people. So, that makes your economy dependent on that because those people send money back to their home countries which is not a good economic formula. That makes the economies dependent of that. So, when you keep this country dependent on that, the economy is like a vicious cycle, so it&#8217;s bad for the United States because immigration will go up and it&#8217;s bad for our country because people leaving the country will go as well so it&#8217;s bad for both of us.</blockquote>

President Of El Salvador Nayib Bukele Visits “The Story With Martha MacCallum”

President Of El Salvador: High Immigration To U.S. Is Bad For U.S. And Latin American Nations

El Salvador

Immigration

After a man who was scheduled to testify against alleged members of the violent MS-13 gang was found bludgeoned to death in New York, Nassau County officials, including the police commissioner and the district attorney, questioned whether new bail reform laws that permitted his name to be revealed by defense attorneys to defendants had led to his death.
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/nyregion/ms-13-long-island.html">The New York Times</a> wrote of the victim, Wilmer Maldonado Rodriguez, 36, &#8220;On Sunday, Mr. Rodriguez was found beaten to death outside a home in New Cassel, N.Y., and on Wednesday, his killing became a new flash point in the debate over criminal justice changes enacted by the New York State Legislature in 2019 at the urging of progressive lawmakers.&#8221;
As <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/02/05/man-who-was-supposed-to-testify-against-ms-13-gang-members-found-dead/">The New York Post</a> reported, Rodriguez was “allegedly attacked by nine MS-13 members in October 2018 after intervening when the group threatened two boys. The suspects allegedly beat all three victims, stabbing Maldonado several times and knocking him in the head with a bat, officials said.”
Last December, prosecutors revealed who Rodriguez was to an arrested suspect’s defense team; prior to that his identity was concealed by protective order, as Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas stated. She added, “This case underscores the importance of safeguarding the identities of witnesses and victims of crime and our hearts are with Mr. Maldonado’s family and friends as we grieve his loss.”
Nassau County Executive Laura Curran added, “These new discovery requirements pose a threat to both the victims and witnesses of crimes … I am calling on Albany to take corrective action to fix criminal justice reform immediately. These new discovery requirements pose a threat to both the victims and witnesses of crimes.”
As <a href="https://wcbs880.radio.com/articles/news/ms-13-witness-killed-nassau-s-top-cop-blames-bail-law">WCBS</a> reported, Singas stated, &#8220;This courageous man was prepared to testify against his alleged assailants at an upcoming trial, but he was brutally beaten to death before he could.”
Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder noted that the new bail reform law forces prosecutors to hand over all evidence against a defendant within 15 days of arraignment. He stated, “The system failed. The system failed, this man is dead … Justice reform is not taking care of our victims.” <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/crime/witness-murder-reform-new-cassel-1.41460454">Newsday</a> noted, “Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said even before Rodriguez was killed, he was assaulted and another victim was shot at &#8212; acts of intimidation that Ryder said began after the previously sealed evidence in the case was disclosed to defense attorneys.”
Ryder later stated there was no direct correlation between the law and Rodriguez&#8217;s death.
In late December, acting state Supreme Court Justice Helene Gugerty, the trial judge, issued an order that provided “for the disclosure of the protected information to defense counsel” but said that the defendants couldn’t see it until Jan. 6 “as that was the trial date,” according to court officials.
Singas added that prosecutors &#8220;protected this victim’s identity by obtaining a protective order in December of 2018, but his identity was disclosed pursuant to a judge’s order in December 2019.” A spokesman for Singas asserted, ‘We continued to request that the identities of the witnesses be protected until we could be ready for trial.&#8221;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

Midsection Of People Sitting On Table At Police Station

Witness Scheduled To Testify Against Alleged MS-13 Members Found Murdered. NY Officials Question Whether New Bail Reforms Laws Were Involved.

A member of the violent MS-13 gang who had been previously deported from the U.S. five times was found yet again in Toledo, Ohio.
Juan Carlos Alvarez-Robles, a wanted Mexican national, was found by U.S. Border Patrol agents after executing a federal arrest warrant, WTOL <a href="https://www.wtol.com/article/news/crime/us-border-patrol-arrests-ms-13-gang-member-in-toledo/512-a458d7cb-f946-423d-94bf-567ad9c767ec">reported</a>.
“Alvarez is suspected of numerous criminal activities in the Great Lakes region and has been removed from the United States five times previously,” the outlet reported. “He also has an extensive criminal history according to officials, including: possession of a controlled substance, transporting/selling of narcotics and grand theft auto as well as multiple accounts of theft and burglary.”
He was apprehended by agents with the Sandusky Bay Station, the Detroit Sector Special Operations Detachment, and the Toledo Drug Enforcement Administration Task Force and is currently being held by the U.S. Marshal Service, WTOL reported.
Brian McNeal, spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration Detroit Field Division, told WTOL: “MS-13 is one of the world’s largest gangs. Department of Justice estimates their membership to exceed 50,000 members with affiliates in several urban centers in the country including Northwest Ohio. Through law enforcement collaborations, MS-13 members continue to be arrested in order to keep our communities safe from drugs and the violence that is associated with drug trafficking.&#8221;
Throughout 2019, numerous members of MS-13 were arrested or convicted for murder across the U.S. In September, for example, The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ms-13-gang-members-arrested-murder-maryland-ashe-schow">reported</a> that six of the seven people arrested in Towson, Maryland, for murder that month were members of the violent gang – all in the country illegally. The seven arrested had targeted a man named Daniel Cueller because he allegedly flashed the hand sign of the rival 18th Street gang. The MS-13 members stalked Cueller to a laundromat, then followed him back to his apartment building and stabbed him to death, allegedly using a “machete-style knife.” Surveillance footage from the laundromat helped lead to the arrests of his killers.
More from The Daily Wire:
<blockquote>Maryland has been struggling with gang violence for some time. In July, four teenagers were arrested for beating 14-year-old Ariana Funes-Diaz to death. Two of the four were members of MS-13, who feared Funes-Diaz would tell police about a gang-related kidnapping two months earlier in Washington, D.C., WBAL reported.
At the end of August, an MS-13 gang member from Maryland was sentenced to 30 years in prison for racketeering and stabbing a rival gang member to death four years earlier, the Sun reported.
In April 2018, another MS-13 gang member from Gaithersburg, MD, was sentenced to 35 years in prison for the stabbing of a rival gang member three years earlier.</blockquote>
New York has also had trouble with MS-13. In September of last year, three members of the gang were arrested for the 2017 killing of a 16-year-old suspected of working with law enforcement. The murdered 16-year-old had been tasked with killing another low-level gang member who was suspected of warning a third low-level gang member that the leader wanted him dead. The murder victim apparently failed to kill his target and was then murdered by the leader of the gang.

MS-13

MS-13 Gang Member Deported FIVE TIMES Found In U.S. Again

Illegal Immigration

A man who claims to be a member of the dangerous MS-13 gang was released from prison thanks to New York’s bail reform law, only to be arrested the same day for committing the same crime that landed him in jail in the first place.
Eusebio Jax-Mejia, 21, was jailed on January 1 after stealing a vehicle from Dutchess County and then giving Walton police a fake name. At the time, he was imprisoned on charges of “criminal possession of stolen property in the 3rd degree, a class D felony and false impersonation, a class B misdemeanor,” WBNG <a href="https://wbng.com/2020/01/15/sheriff-suspect-released-sent-back-to-jail-same-day-in-delaware-county/">reported</a>.
Jax-Mejia was released Tuesday thanks to New York’s bail reform law, which has allowed numerous criminals to go free after their arrest rather than sit in jail for their crimes. The law was intended to ensure that the jail system wasn’t allowing wealthy individuals more freedom than low-income criminals who couldn’t “buy” their way out of prison. But large bail amounts would be set to prohibit dangerous people from returning to the streets, but now some of those people are being let loose to commit the same crimes that landed them in prison in the first place.
Just hours after Jax-Mejia was released, he was arrested again for stealing a vehicle – this time a vehicle from outside the Delaware County Public Safety building, WBNG reported. This time Jax-Mejia was charged with “grand larceny in the 3rd degree, a class D felony,” the outlet reported.
In <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DelawareCountySheriff/photos/a.612392405599642/1392267927612082/?type=3&amp;theater">a statement</a> posted on Facebook, the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office addressed Jax-Mejia’s arrest and took a shot at the bail reform law.
“This is just one of many examples of the failed so-called bail reform legislation that was enacted on January 1st. Dangerous criminals throughout New York State are being released after committing violent, felony-level acts only to re-offend and continue to commit dangerous felony-level acts, creating victims and wreaking havoc in their wake,” said Sheriff Craig DuMond. “Does Governor Cuomo and our State Legislature really believe that dangerous criminals who are immediately released will not re-offend and instead show up for court? Real victims are being created by the hour and real lives are being lost. When will they come to their senses and fix the problems they created? The people of New York State are crying out and their voices are falling on deaf ears. The first duty of any public official is to provide for the safety of the people they represent and, currently, they are failing miserably. I call upon the Governor and State Legislature to put politics aside and immediately address the dangerous pieces of bail and discovery reform.”
The Daily Wire has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-democrats-bail-reform-has-already-cost-a-life-seething-family-speaks-out">reported</a> previously that one person has already died due to the bail reform law. Jonathan Armand Flores-Maldonado, 27, was killed after Jordan Randolph – a man with a lengthy criminal history that includes numerous drunk driving offenses – was released from prison. Randolph had been arrested for failing to obtain the court-ordered ignition interlock device for his car. He was released on January 1 and 11 days later was involved in a crash that killed Flores-Maldonado. Randolph was charged with a DWI in connection with the crash.

Facepalm

Another Bail Reform Fail: Gang Member Released From Prison, Sent Back Same Day For Committing Same Crime

Bail Reform

Crime

New York

A member of the violent MS-13 gang was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for taking part in a brutal attack involving a machete outside of Dallas, Texas, two years ago.
Manuel Amaya-Alvarez, a 22-year-old El Salvadorian national who was in the U.S. illegally, was sentenced to 20 years on November 14, according to a press release from the Department of Justice (DOJ). Amaya-Alvarez was one of several MS-13 gang members involved in the attack, which resulted in serious physical injuries to two men and the death of a female.
Amaya-Alvarez admitted in September 2017 that he and his fellow gang members planned to “take out” four individuals at the Running Bear Park just outside of Dallas, in Irving, Texas. Members of the gang lured a man they believed was part of a rival gang to the park, claiming they wanted to purchase his tattoo machine. When the man arrived at the park with two other men and a woman, Amaya-Alvarez and another gang member greeted the group.
The group of four was taken into a wooded area, where other gang members armed with a shotgun as well as machetes and clubs revealed themselves. The four victims were surrounded and forced to their knees. The MS-13 gang members robbed the four individuals and then began attacking them.
The three men were able to escape, but two of them suffered blunt force trauma and cuts from the gang’s weapons. The woman, according to the DOJ, “was savagely maimed and left for dead.”
The DOJ provided no update to the cases of the other gang members involved in the attack.
This wasn’t even the only machete attack carried out by the MS-13 gang. In September of this year, six MS-13 gang members were arrested for murdering Daniel Cueller on July 31 in Maryland. The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ms-13-gang-members-arrested-murder-maryland-ashe-schow">reported</a> that Cueller had allegedly flashed the hand sign of a rival street gang, leading to the attack by MS-13.
Cueller,21, was then stalked and stabbed to death outside his apartment building. One of the murders allegedly used a knife similar to a machete in the attack.
A total of seven people were arrested for the murder after surveillance video showed them stalking Cueller. Six of the individuals arrested were members of MS-13 and in the country illegally – five from El Salvador and one from Mexico.
As The Daily Wire reported at the time, Maryland has been struggling with MS-13 violence for years, including the beating death of 14-year-old Ariana Funes-Diaz in July. In August, a member of MS-13 was sentenced to 30 years in prison for racketeering and stabbing a rival gang member to death four years earlier, and in April 2018, another MS-13 member was sentenced to 35 years in prison for stabbing a member of a rival gang three years earlier.

MS-13 Gang Member Sentenced To 20 Years For Role In Machete Attack

An upcoming trial involving a whopping 10 defendants &#8212; all with ties to the violent MS-13 gang &#8212; will require courtroom remodeling in order to accommodate all involved.
Santa Barbara media outlet Noozhawk <a href="https://www.noozhawk.com/article/courthouse_modifications_santa_maria_gang_murder_trial_10_defendants">reported</a> that the defendants are facing trial in connection with 10 murders and 14 attempted murders. Superior Court executive officer Darrel Parker has been tasked with finding a courtroom that can accommodate all the accused &#8212; and their attorneys. Parker told the outlet that he tried to look for off-site rooms for the trial, but costs prohibited that as an option.
“We looked at commercial space in the community to see if that would have more viability, but it&#8217;s prohibitively expensive,” Parker told Noozhawk.
Parker said that using a commercial building as the courtroom for the trial would cost an estimated $2 million to $20 million &#8212; nearly his entire annual budget for the county.
“I couldn’t do it. It was a fiscal impossibility,” he told the outlet.
He found that the biggest courtroom in Santa Maria &#8212; Department 8 &#8212; would be the best room for the trial.
“It’s the biggest courtroom we have, and we used it for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Michael_Jackson">Michael Jackson trial,</a>” Parker told the outlet.
That doesn’t mean the courtroom was sitting there perfectly all along, it will still require renovations to accommodate the large number of defendants. From Noozhawk:
<blockquote>While court staff has not yet finalized plans, Parker said the project proposes removing most of the audience seating from Department 8.
That will allow moving the rail back to fit all 10 defendants, 10 defense attorneys, at least three prosecuting attorneys, and court staff in the newly created larger well, or area for non-audience members.
The jury box also will be made bigger to accommodate seating for the 12 jurors and likely equal number of alternates.
This work reportedly will cost about $140,000, money not included in the 2019-20 budget. He has asked the<a href="https://www.courts.ca.gov/policyadmin-jc.htm"> California Judicial Council</a> for funding.</blockquote>
Parker also said the court would look to the holiday period to make the necessary renovations, since that is typically a slow time for the court system.
In 2015, the county faced another large trial, involving six defendants accused of murder. The trial was held at the Santa Maria Juvenile Court with additional jury seating.
Parker previously had used some creativity to figure out how to accommodate alternate jurors in the Michael Jackson case. The original estimate for the additional chairs was $10,000, but Parker looked to eBay and ended up spending no “more than $45 a chair,” he told Noozhawk.
MS-13 is a violent gang operating in numerous states across the country. The gang is responsible for hundreds of murders throughout the United States. Many of its members are illegal immigrants.

Empty chairs in jury box

A Trial Involving 10 MS-13 Gang Members Will Require Courtroom Changes To Accommodate All Defendants

As of right now, most national head-to-head polls for the 2020 presidential general election show President Donald Trump losing to his Democratic Party presidential primary rivals. This trend generally holds, regardless of whether the nominee is any of the leading top three Democratic candidates: Former Vice President <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html">Joe Biden</a>, Sen. <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_warren-6251.html">Elizabeth Warren</a> (D-MA), or Sen. <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-6250.html">Bernie Sanders</a> (I-VT).
While the Trump campaign might be tempted to rest on its laurels and sneer at the polls based upon a look back at the perceived polling debacle that was the 2016 presidential election, such a move would be just as haughty as it is myopic. As Harry Enten&#8217;s <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-just-a-normal-polling-error-behind-clinton/">article</a> from November 4, 2016 — that would be four days before the general election — presciently pointed out, in retrospect, polling from the 2016 election cycle was not actually irreconcilable with a Trump victory. Trump obviously trailed Hillary Clinton in the polls, but his victory was actually not outside the realm of polling feasibility — or even outside the realm of polling reasonableness.
As such, the 2020 Trump re-election campaign would be wise to focus on what it can do to win over a larger share of independent, moderate, and suburban voters. In doing so, the Trump campaign would be wise to look back to a much-ballyhooed part of Karl Rove&#8217;s 2004 blueprint for George W. Bush&#8217;s re-election: Specifically, that campaign&#8217;s ingenious focus on the &#8220;<a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/security-moms-bushs-secret-election-weapon-gl6jc8cxr7j">security mom</a>.&#8221; The mythical &#8220;security mom,&#8221; at the time, was symbolized by the proverbial suburban mother who was worried about revanchist Islamist terrorism and sought to protect her home and family against those who would seek to kill us.
Although some of the specific animating issues have changed over the past 15 years, there is tremendous potential this election cycle for Trump to deploy similar messaging and reach out to a similar sect of voters.
Violent crime in America, despite overall dramatically declining since the 1990s, has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-in-defense-of-prosecutors">unfortunately spiked</a> over the past few years. Why isn&#8217;t Trump formally renouncing the <a href="https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20191004/he-was-released-early-from-prison-in-february-now-hes-wanted-for-murder-on-federal-hill">harrowing</a> First Step Act jailbreak law, the passage of which he apparently already <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/trump-reportedly-regrets-passage-jailbreak-first-step-act-gullible-conservatives-supported/">regrets</a>, and doubling down on &#8220;Willie Horton&#8221;-style anti-crime messaging?
Left-wing Democrats are campaigning harder than ever on anti-Second Amendment, gun-grabbing policy proposals. Why isn&#8217;t Trump leading Republicans on a 2020 platform of cracking down on the gun felons that <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/html/decriminalization-delusion-14037.html">light-on-crime</a> jurisdictions like California seem <a href="https://calmatters.org/gun-violence/2019/10/felons-firearms-california-federal-charges-gun-control-newsom/">hellbent on unleashing</a> upon the general public?
The global jihad — as embodied both by the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-designating-muslim-brotherhood-terrorist-josh-hammer">Muslim Brotherhood</a>, the mother&#8217;s milk of Sunni jihad, as well as more public-facing Islamist outfits like al-Qaeda and Islamic State — continues, 18 years after 9/11, to pose a threat to the U.S. homeland. Why isn&#8217;t Trump running on a platform of discussing not just the wall and border security, but also the arguably even more indispensable issue of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-border-wall-nice-interior-enforcement-nicer-josh-hammer">interior visa enforcement</a>? What about the need to radically <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-never-forget-911-we-need-rethink-how-we-josh-hammer">restructure our immigration policy</a> away from letting in largely unvetted populations of Middle Easterners?
Across the nation, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-who-will-stand-for-the-forgotten-american">neo-Confederate</a> &#8220;sanctuary&#8221; jurisdictions employ anti-<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlevi">Supremacy Clause</a> erroneous legal &#8220;reasoning&#8221; to defy <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=2ahUKEwiHsv7v4LXjAhWTHM0KHZKMB7gQFjAAegQIAxAB&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.law.cornell.edu%2Fuscode%2Ftext%2F8%2F1324&amp;usg=AOvVaw2EunpYa249SvA-oBwwFrS2">federal immigration law</a>, ignore ICE detainers on <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/another-illegal-alien-arrested-brutal-rape-notorious-sanctuary-montgomery-county/">violent criminal aliens</a>, and aid and abet the work of the transnational Mexican cartels that traffick drugs and criminals alike into the homeland. Why isn&#8217;t Trump proposing more aggressive policies to strip federal funding away from sanctuary jurisdictions and effectively message to suburban voters that the government will act to help prevent MS-13 thugs from terrorizing their neighborhoods?
There are a myriad other examples, to be sure. But to maximize its 2020 re-election chances, the Trump campaign ought to focus more intensively on appealing to moderates and suburban swing voters. In order to do so, there is no better platform than a safety and security agenda tailored to the very &#8220;security moms&#8221; that President Bush so effectively courted in 2004.

Handcuffed prisoner

HAMMER: Trump Needs To Focus On A Safety And Security Agenda For 2020

2020 Election

Al Qaeda

Democratic Party

Donald Trump

Hamas

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Jail

National Security

Another person has been murdered in the Seattle area due to gang violence committed by illegal immigrants, yet the city still refuses to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Carlos Orlando Iraheta-Vega, a member of the MS-13 gang, was arrested and accused of the brutal slaying of his teenage friend, Juan Carlos Con Guzman. Iraheta-Vega, who entered the country illegally, is accused of bashing Guzman to death with a baseball bat, and then working with another gang member to chop the body into pieces using a machete. One of Guzman’s arms and legs had been severed. Marks on his neck suggested the perpetrators attempted to cut his head off.
The Washington Times <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/oct/14/king-county-washington-officials-shun-ice-despite-/">reported</a> that Iraheta-Vega, 20, “admitted to the killing, saying he’d arranged to fight Juan Carlos but somewhere along the way he and a fellow MS-13 confederate, nicknamed ‘Inferno,’ decided to kill him instead.”
The Times also reported that Iraheta-Vega would have been deported about a year ago had Seattle cooperated with ICE at the time.
“But King County refused to notify ICE that Mr. Iraheta-Vega was being released from jail, and instead freed him into the community. He would have more run-ins with the law, each time escaping ICE’s clutches, until his arrest last week on suspicion of murder,” the outlet reported.
Iraheta-Vega’s arrest on suspicion of murder came just one week after Carlos Daniel Carillo-Lopez was arrested on charges of participating in the murder of a teen boy with fellow gang members. The boy was targeted because his girlfriend had posted a photo of herself online making the hand sign of a rival gang. Carillo-Lopez was a member of the Surenos gang and was prepared to fight a boy who was previously his friend. But after the boy’s girlfriend posted photos of herself making the hand sign of the 18th Street gang, Carillo-Lopez joined others in killing him, the Times reported.
Both Iraheta-Vega and Carillo-Lopez had previous criminal records when they were arrested for murder. Iraheta-Vega had previously stolen a car and had an ICE detainer request placed on him, which city officials in Seattle ignored due to sanctuary city policies.
Sanctuary cities have prevented ICE from deporting dangerous illegal immigrants before they can commit additional crimes.
“This scenario, where sanctuary policies shield criminal aliens who prey on people in the community from immigration enforcement, is becoming all too common,” ICE spokeswoman Tanya Roman told the Times. “As Iraheta-Vega’s crimes increased in severity, local officials chose to release him, time and time again, without notification to ICE, a simple process that could have potentially prevented this crime.”
At the end of September, ICE offices across the country arrested <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ice-offices-across-the-country-arrested-hundreds-of-criminal-illegal-immigrants-last-week">more than 400 illegal immigrants</a> – most of whom had previous criminal histories. The previous crimes committed including drug offenses, sexual assault (including sexual assault of minors), domestic violence, assault, and more. Many of the arrests took place in sanctuary cities, whose officials refuse to turn illegal immigrants over to ICE.
The recent arrests in Seattle have apparently not deterred the cities sanctuary policies.

Chalk outline of body

Another Brutal Gang Slaying In Sanctuary City Seattle, Yet Police Still Won’t Work With ICE

Seattle

Some Leftists blew a gasket last year after President Donald Trump referred to MS-13 gang members as “animals.”
What, you say men who torture, rape and kill with abandon deserve a sub-human label? Have you no decently, Mr. President?
Even the Speaker of the House <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/05/17/ms-13-donald-trump-gang-violence-animals-immigrants-media-column/621537002/">got into the act</a>.
“Does he not believe in the <a href="https://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2018/05/17/pelosi-responds-to-trumps-animals-remarks-n2481783">spark of divinity</a>, the dignity and worth of every person?” Rep. Nancy Pelosi said at the time.
Could that same thinking be lurking within a powerhouse crowdfunding site?
Mike S. Miller, a right-leaning comic book artist with 27 years experience, designed a crowdfunding campaign for his hero, Lonestar. He describes the character as a “super patriot” who battles evil alongside fellow warriors.
The character isn’t partisan on paper, although he says superheroes who are unabashedly heroic and believe in self-sacrifice are suddenly viewed from an ideological prism. A future “Lonestar” comic will take on an Antifa-style group, says Miller, who contributed to the Injustice Series for DC Comics, among other gigs.
He initially wanted to use IndieGoGo.com for “Lonestar’s” crowdfunding launch, knowing the site has an apolitical reputation. Miller decided to give Kickstarter.com a chance first. The latter site boasts a broad cultural footprint, even though some conservatives fear it tips the scales in favor of the Left.
Miller noticed the site’s “things we love” category routinely highlights campaigns with “left-wing” agendas.
“They push those projects hard and often,” he says.
Miller’s worries had a little history on his side, too.
Phelim McAleer famously sparred with Kickstarter in 2014 when he tried to spark his “Gosnell” film project at the site. The film, which eventually hit theaters last year, focused on the monstrous crimes committed by Philadelphia abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell.
Team Kickstarter threw a red flag on the Gosnell campaign at the time, noting <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/filmmaker-accuses-kickstarter-censoring-gosnell-700566">its indelicate language</a>.
<blockquote>Phelim McAleer …switched to IndieGoGo at the last moment because, he says, Kickstarter was insisting on changes to the wording of his campaign and engaging in other delay tactics. In the end, Kickstarter approved the project but stipulated, as it says is customary, that McAleer agree to allow the company to yank the project from its site if anything &#8220;objectionable&#8221; was added to its web presence.</blockquote>
McAleer, who most recently <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/fbi-lovebirds-undercovers--2#/">staged a reading of texts</a> from disgraced FBI agents Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, later launched a billboard campaign near Kickstarter’s New York offices to denounce its “censorship.”
More importantly, McAleer revealed other, more graphic Kickstarter campaigns at the time that, apparently, sailed past the site’s censors.
Miller says Kickstarter initially approved his “Lonestar” campaign. Later, after he began uploading a few sample pages from the project, the company changed course.
“However, after a careful review, we’ve determined that your project cannot be approved for launch,” Team Kickstarter said.
Miller combed through the site’s rules of conduct, making sure his story didn’t run afoul of any existing guidelines. He even removed comic book pages featuring an MS-13 style group getting beaten up by his hero. Part of the story in question found Lonestar coming to the aid of a black woman caught in the gang’s clutches.
That tweak didn’t help. In fact, Kickstarter later rejected the campaign outright.
<blockquote>As a Public Benefit Corporation dedicated to battling inequality and creating a more equitable world, Kickstarter does not allow discrimination, subjugation, or intolerance towards marginalized groups.</blockquote>
Like … MS-13?
This decision, the note continued, is non-negotiable. Miller shared screen shots of the Kickstarter responses and the comic panels in question with The Daily Wire. This site reached out to Kickstarter.com’s press contact for a response but didn’t receive one before deadline.
Miller, who is half Japanese, thinks the only reason Kickstarter would nix his campaign is if it thought the gang criminals represented a “marginalized group.”
“It’s clear that they put their political ideology above their desire to serve artists, creators, and customers.  This is not how you should do business in America. It’s shameful,” Miller says.
The “Lonestar” project can now be found at <a href="http://lonestarcomic.com/">Indiegogo.com</a>.

MS-13 Gang Members

Comic Book Artist: Kickstarter Rejected Campaign for Showing Hero Beating Up MS-13 Like Thugs

Violence

In 2017, a 16-year-old low-level member of the violent MS-13 gang was suspected of working with law enforcement. The leader of his particular faction of the gang allegedly authorized his murder.
Now, two years later, that suspected leader and two other members have been indicted for the murder: Local free newspaper the Queens Chronicle <a href="https://www.qchron.com/editions/north/three-reputedly-in-ms--charged-over-slay/article_cd0c7e07-9850-54ef-9c99-f073a0fa4932.html">reported</a> them as 28-year-old Melvi Amador-Rios (the apparent leader of the faction), 22-year-old Josue Leiva, and 24-year-old Luis Rivas. Rivas is a new defendant added on in the 18-count superseding indictment, the Chronicle reported. The “indictment was filed Thursday in Brooklyn federal court, charging three members of the vicious gang variously with racketeering, murder, attempted murder, murder conspiracy, robbery and related firearms charges,” the outlet reported.
The new indictment included the murder charges against the three members.
The story of the 16-year-old Julio Vasquez’s death is a little complicated. Amador-Rios allegedly suspected a low-level gang member, referred to in an indictment as John Doe 2, was associating with a rival gang. Amador-Rios authorized the murder of John Doe 2. The leader of the Centrales Locos Salvatruchas faction of MS-13 then suspected that another low-level member, referred to as John Doe 3, had warned John Doe 2 about his impending murder. Amador-Rios then tasked Vasquez with killing John Doe 3. Vasquez failed and was subsequently suspected of working with law enforcement. Amador-Rios then ordered Vasquez’s murder as well.
On May 16, 2017, Vasquez was brought to a wooded area of Alley Pond Park and was allegedly stabbed multiple times by Leiva and Rivas. Vasquez died as a result of his injuries, and his body was found five days later.
“The superseding indictment also adds a robbery charge and associated firearms offense against Amador-Rios and Rivas. On Jan. 8, 2017, they allegedly robbed a money transfer business in Jamaica at gunpoint, and pistol-whipped an employee,” the Chronicle reported. “The defendants face life in prison if convicted.”
Arrests for MS-13 gang members have appeared to pick up in recent years. In July, it was reported that a high school <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50486/ms-13-murdered-california-high-school-student-ashe-schow">declined to inform</a> parents and students that a 16-year-old student was murdered by MS-13 members. At least five of the gang members arrested for the murder were also students at Panorama High School.
Earlier this month, yet another group of MS-13 members were arrested in Maryland for murder. As The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51498/ms-13-gang-members-arrested-murder-maryland-ashe-schow">reported</a>, six members of MS-13 murdered Daniel Cuellar after he allegedly flashed the sign of a rival gang. MS-13 members stalked him and stabbed him to death. More from the Wire:
<blockquote>Maryland has been struggling with gang violence for some time. In July, four teenagers were arrested for beating 14-year-old Ariana Funes-Diaz to death. Two of the four were members of MS-13, who feared Funes-Diaz would tell police about a gang-related kidnapping two months earlier in Washington, D.C., WBAL reported.</blockquote>
New York has also seen its share of MS-13 gang violence. A 16-year-old <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42105/3-allegedly-illegal-alien-ms-13-gang-members-stab-ashe-schow">was stabbed</a> after leaving a Long Island Burger King earlier this year. The murders were allegedly orchestrated my illegal alien members of MS-13.

Menu