You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Trump Admin Targets MS-13 Gang, Putting Immigrants in Crosshairs

HeadlineJul 28, 2017

Attorney General Sessions made the comments from San Salvador, where he met El Salvador’s president to discuss the transnational gang known as MS-13. Sessions’s trip came as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, ICE, said it’s carrying out raids targeting undocumented teenagers it accuses of being members of MS-13 and other gangs. The criteria ICE is using to assess gang affiliation reportedly includes whether teenagers have tattoos, wear clothing typical to a gang or even spend time in an area that’s known to have gangs. During a news conference at the White House Thursday, acting ICE Director Thomas Homan spoke in front of a series of images of young brown men with tattoos, saying his agency was now deporting undocumented immigrants who have been arrested for a crime—even if they haven’t been found guilty.

Thomas Homan: “For those that—criminal aliens that get booked in a county jail, on the prior administration they needed a conviction before we can put a detainer on them and put them in our custody. That’s not necessary anymore. If you’ve been arrested for a serious crime and you’re in a county jail, we’re going to drop a detainer, we’re going to take the person into custody.”

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top