donald trumpwho assumed the presidency of the United States this Monday, announced that he will declare criminal groups and cartels terrorists, including the Venezuelan one Aragua Train and the Salvadoran MS-13, in the framework of its fight against illegal migration.
“Among the executive orders I will sign today, we are going to designate the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations,” Trump said during his inaugural address at the Capitol shortly after being sworn in.
Before the ceremony, a source in the new administration – who declared on condition of anonymity – told the news agency AFP that the government will designate “criminal cartels and other groups as global terrorists,” citing the Tren de Aragua and the Salvadoran gang MS-13.
Trump detailed that his administration will invoke a law of 1798 on the presence of “foreign enemies” on American soil to order the use of the “immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks that commit devastating crimes in our territory.”
The anonymous source also stated that the measures that will be taken will include the “expulsion of the members of the Tren de Aragua gang”, which he considers an “irregular armed force of the government of Venezuela conducting a predatory incursion and invasion in the United States.”
Throughout his campaign, in which he resorted to incendiary anti-immigrant rhetoric, Trump promised to expel the “savage” Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and the Salvadoran MS-13 and undocumented immigrants. He also said that he will establish the “death penalty” for those who commit murders of Americans.
“The United States is now an occupied country, but it will soon cease to be so,” he repeated at his rallies.
The Aragua Train operates in several South American countries with crimes such as extortion, homicides and drug trafficking. According to the Texas government, which recently declared it a terrorist organization, it also participates in the migrant trafficking.
In July, the State Department admitted that the organization’s activity had spread to the United States and offered rewards for three of its members that could be in Colombia and Venezuela.
As for MS-13, three high-ranking members of the criminal organization pleaded guilty last week to multiple crimes, including nine murders committed on Long Island, New York state, and elsewhere between 2016 and 2017, the department reported. of Justice of the United States.
The defendants, who pleaded guilty in federal court in Central Islip (Long Island), They were the leaders for New York of the Hollywood and Sailors cells (‘clicas’, in gang slang) of MS-13.
It is specifically about David Sosa-Guevara, also known as “Risky,” the New York regional leader of the MS-13 Hollywood Locos Salvatruchas (Hollywood) clique, and Victor Lopez-Moralesthe “Persian”, a prominent member of Hollywood.
Both pleaded guilty yesterday, while Kevin Torres, alias “Inquieto,” New York leader of the MS-13 Sailors Locos Salvatruchas Westside (Sailors) clique, did so today.
All three plea proceedings were held before the federal judge Lee G. Dunst and each of the individuals could face up to 60 years in prison.
“The defendants have admitted their participation in numerous murders savagely committed with machetes and firearms, all in the name of MS-13 and to increase their status in that depraved criminal organization,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Carolyn Pokorny in the release.
That same week Jairo Saenzanother high-level MS-13 member in New York, pleaded guilty to racketeering and other federal charges for seven murders, including those of two high school girls in 2016 that captured the attention of the entire United States.
(With information from AFP)
