Chad Lundquist/Nevada Appeal
President Trump and his beleaguered Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, late last month announced a crackdown on El Salvador-based MS-13 and other violent gangs that traffic in drugs and human beings. In fact, Sessions was in El Salvador to promote anti-gang cooperation when Trump announced his MS-13 crackdown in upstate New York.
But instead of praising Sessions, Trump launched a “tweetstorm” designed to force Sessions to resign because he had recused himself in the ongoing Russia investigations. Apparently, the president thinks his attorney general should be his personal attorney, a misreading of federal law and our Constitution.
Back to MS-13, President Trump has blamed the Obama administration and so-called “sanctuary” cities for permitting violent gangs to flourish in the U.S. although, to be fair, Obama’s Justice Department took steps to target MS-13’s finances.
In the Trump White House, however, international criminal gangs will be a top policy priority. In a 2014 magazine interview, Trump’s new Chief of Staff, retired Gen. John Kelly, the former secretary of Homeland Security, said “the most concerning threat facing the United States comes from international criminal networks trafficking in drugs and sex workers.”
MS-13, started by Central American immigrants in the Los Angeles area — many of them illegal — in the 1980s, is known for its ruthless and violent tactics, notably for using machetes to hack its victims to death. Sessions has called the gang “a top threat to public safety in the U.S.” and according to the Feds, MS-13 membership has ballooned to at least 10,000 members in the U.S. and 30,000 worldwide. Recently, MS-13 has been connected to at least 11 murders on New York’s Long Island since last year.
This is the part of the immigration debate illegal immigration advocates don’t want to discuss. To them, all illegal immigrants are wonderful people who only seek better lives in the U.S. But what about those who are supplying drugs to our children and hacking people to death? Think about that the next time you see a page one article in a certain Reno newspaper extolling the virtues of illegal immigration.
Sessions has vowed to eradicate MS-13 by cracking down on illegal immigration. “The MS-13 motto is kill, rape and control,” Sessions told Long Island law enforcement officials. “We intend to prosecute them and after they’re convicted, if they’re not here lawfully, we’ll deport them.” And that’s exactly what “ICE” and local law enforcement officials should be doing, even in “sanctuary” cities, including Reno, which describes itself as a “welcoming” city, which means it’s a sanctuary city.
And just in case you think MS-13 confines its illegal activities and violence to faraway places, a Reno friend of mine who is a veteran law enforcement and intelligence officer has spotted MS-13 gang-bangers in the Truckee Meadows, most recently at the Peavine Post Office in northwest Reno. My friend observed a gang-banger who sported “a large tattooed ‘M’ on the back of his right arm and the number ‘13’ on the back of his neck” while mailing a large package to El Salvador. “Prison/street gangs have established roots, here,” he warned.
So that’s what’s happening right here in Northern Nevada even as some folks urge us to be nice to all illegal immigrants; however, some of those illegals aren’t all that nice; just ask Sheriff Ken Furlong and District Attorney Jason Woodbury.
On Thursday, Mayor Bob Crowell and our four city supervisors voted to commercialize recreational marijuana in Carson. Violent criminal gangs like MS-13 follow the cash-only drug trade as night follows day, and they’ll be here when recreational pot goes on sale here on Jan. 1. Count on it.
Guy W. Farmer thinks “recreational” marijuana is a bad idea.