From the white house, it is just under an hour. We are here to discuss the tremendous threat of ms 13. One of the most violent and vicious gangs anywhere in the world. We have not seen anything quite like this, the level of ferocity, the level of violence and the reforms we need from congress to defeat it. I am honored to be joined by secretary nielsen. Top officials and federal Law Enforcement and our local sheriffs, her great sheriffs. Were also joined by congressman peter king. Peter, thank you. Congressman lee zelman, good to have you. We have barbara. Thank you barbara. Nice to have you. Callongressman mike Mullen Michael mccaul. To our broken immigration system, by letting our borders and it comes right through whatever they want to come through. It has been much tougher since we have been there. We need much better border mechanisms and much better Border Security. If we dont have the while we will never solve this problem. Without the wall, it will not work. State of the union i called on congress to close the immigration loopholes that have allowed this deadly gang to break so easily into our country. Identifiedration has we haveiorities, identified three priorities for creating a safe, modern and level integration system securing the border, and in chain migration and canceling the terrible visa lottery. It,ave been talking about were talking about it in congress, daca and now we can work that out. I think the democrats dont want to make a deal that we will find out. As Congress Considers immigration reform, it is essential that we listen to Law Enforcement professionals in this room today so i will turn over to secretary nielsen where we will begin discussion and you people may want to use date for a little while. Roundtableu for the on ms 13, it is the first game dangerous enough to be classified as a transnational criminal organization. We have talked at length of the devastating construction and worknce and we are here to to combat this. Dhs is the men and women of to make in the job every day to fight other violence, cross our borders and to be joined by members of congress have some great leadership. To close thengress loopholes you just talked about. When we talk about ms 13 we have two or three men new pose. The first is we have an inadmissibility problem. When it comes to our borders, i have to let them in. I cant keep them out by virtue of them being in a gang. Once we catch them, i cannot remove that by virtue of them being in a gang. This is unique to our country, no other country has this. This is unique to our country. That has to change. These are other loopholes to secure our borders. So without going into further detail, this is the acting assistant attorney general. Mss will be a bit more of 13. Significante most Public Safety threats that our ms 13. Ty has comes from ms 13 has over 30,000 members worldwide. The gang has a particularly massive and troubling presence on United States soil. The numbers are staggering. Ms13imated 10,000 members are in our country. Mexico and el salvador and that infiltrated our entire country. This is the District Of Columbia, it is estimated that there are upwards of 2000 members in los angeles, between 800 and 1200 in dallas and houston. 0 in long island, 800 8001000 in boston. Mr. President , as jesus said, ms 13 is probably the most ruthless of gangs terrorizing the streets today. Kill, their mottos is rape, control. It is a motto that they live by. . S professor smith jeanne 13 recruits children to be their murderers. They gang rape young girls. They sell them for a fact. They attacked their victims with chains, machetes, firearms. There is a photo of a shotgun and a machete. That was recovered from the members were stopped by the police as they were on their way to murder a student on a high school at a high school in woodbridge, virginia. Year, the of last 15yearold girl from a suburb of d. C. Was stabbed 13 times. They filmed her murder. This way they can show their leaders backing up. They were barbaric white dumps next to railroad and seven. Two teenage girls who were best friends and murdered by ms 13 times in september of 2015, this was the state of the year. That, in september of 2015, four ms 13 members of boston lord a 15yearold boy where they took turns stabbing him to death. They passed around to knives and they methodically ended his life. Those are the remains of someone who is expected to be a rival gang member. Ms 13 members lower their victims into the woods of centralize up Central Islip in long island and then cut their throats with a pocket knife. Once dead, they stuffed his body into the drainage pipe. It went for months without being discovered. Ms 13 members murdered someone they believed to be a snitch in virginia. They stabbed him with knives and 10 with machetes. And they were done, they buried the body in a shallow grave in the park. Just a few months later in the very same park, ms 13 members murdered a recruit who had violated game rules. They severed his head. They bury his body as well. Buried his body as well. Here is the second of the two graves. Shallow graves used to bury two bodies in a park 10 miles from here. We cannot let our neighborhood be overrun by Violent Crime. That is why dismantling violent 13 is a tops priority of the department of justice. Thatsessions has said theyre looking for justice for victims and consequences were criminals. We too are living by that motto. The department of justice is devoting the resources necessary to ensure that our citizens are no longer being held hostage by matter is cited savages murderous savages like ms13 members. We have charged the most federal firearm prosecutions in a decade. We are enhancing the capacity of the northern triangle comp countries. Ms 13. Y, they can combat this past summer, Jeff Sessions visited el salvador where he met with the el salvador attorney general. They discussed efforts to 13. Antle ms this has real resulted in arrests and charges. We will not stop. The department of justice will be starting more federal prosecutors to the field with specific directions to focus on Violent Crime and immigration. We will continue to use our robust civil statute to arrest violent criminals for whatever crime they commit. Murder, racketeering, kidnapping, Drug Trafficking and get them off our streets. Mr. President , because of this salvadorg based in el and they largely direct printers missions from prisons in el salvador, it is not enough to enforce the Domestic Crime laws. To effectively combat transnational organized crime, we also need enforcement of our immigration laws. Reason ms 13 is so massive in our country, the reason why they have 10,000 members in 40 states and the district of many of thebecause members have illegally entered our country. The department of justice and our state authorities can continue to prosecute scores located in the United States but when we fail to support the human smuggling was when we have loopholes in our immigration laws and when we have insufficient enforcement of our immigration laws they can replenish the jail population. They send more and more gang members across our borders. That is why the department of justice on the attorney generals leadership is also focused on stopping the flow of criminal aliens entering our country. The attorney general has directed his prosecutors to focus on immigration offenses. Has sentney general resources to the southwest border and has created for security coordinators in the united state attorneys offices. They are tasked with enforcing our immigration laws. Especially of criminals like ms 13. Lastly, mr. President , on the smuggling front, the department of justice is working with the department of Homeland Security to identify smuggling routes and to investigate and prosecute ms 13 Smuggling Networks. The department of justice along with the department of Homeland Security and our federal and state Law Enforcement partners is committed to taking all presence inend this our committee. Quite this is after removing thousands to the presence. They come back as fast as we take them out, different ones. Not even the same ones. They come back. We need these immigration laws changed. We are not going to be able to continue to do this. They come in so fast and so easy. Then you have catch and release. Worldother country in the has the stupidity of laws that we do when it comes to immigration. This isnot politics, not republican and democrat, this is common sense. It has to be taken care of. It is my pleasure to introduce you to angel melendez. This is the special agent in charge for our ice office in new york city. Im extremely proud of everything our office does. New york in particular needs the fight against ms 13 and they put their lives in danger. Is a president , this is some of our efforts, one of the things that is fairly important when we are talking about ms 13 is that this is a war. We are at work, a war in the countries against the commandandcontrol. It is an issue we are facing at the borders and want to go but be on the borders, it is a war we are battling on the streets. With our local and lawenforcement partnership. Piece to anyrtant strategy in addressing ms 13 is the collaboration and Immigration Enforcement. Collaboration across the spectrum with countries such as the northern triangle countries nationaldo have for officials working side to side with hsi, the cbp in those countries. Locally, we do the same thing. We have been able to effectively implement a unity of effort into the department of Homeland Security where all of these agencies, all the components that have a direct nexus to Immigration Enforcement and control in the borders are working together to face ms 13. One of the things that we look at his illicit pathways. Who brings them here . What we have been able to see is that ms 13 is not an organization that has their own smuggling apparatus. A do utilize other organizations that are complete experts in the smuggling aspects. Last year we were able to convict an individual was responsible for a Smuggling Network of special interest aliens coming in from pakistan to central america, mexico and the United States, it is that same type of illicit pathway that ms 13 exploits. We continue to work with our foreign partners and city and local partners to be of the to identify those pathways. The Capacity Building and information sharing is extremely important. If we take the fight in their own territory, it is a fight that we have to base here. That, once they are here, we have to address it. They came across the board and now we have to look at how we can curtail recruitment. When we look at the numbers and i will talk about the numbers posted on the website for the office of refugee resettlement, 40,810 alone, unaccompanied alien children ,ere placed for resettlement these are the total amounts that would be seen at the border. These are the ones that will be resettled in the United States. When you look at the demographics, it turns out that 21,881 of them are from the northern triangle countries. They are in the right age for gang recruitment and they are males. Im not saying thats what 1000 of these unaccompanied alien children are gang members. , understandingg ms 13 is that they are looking at these 21,000 unaccompanied alien children that came into the states as potential recruits help their ranks. Another thing that we have been in to look at is operations that we have been him to manage throughout the last couple of years. 30 is a consistent number we have seen of ms 13 members that of been arrested, they came into this country as unaccompanied alien children. Specifically in new york. Another point of interest that we have been addressing and looking at is the special immigrant juvenile program. Of the unaccompanied alien children have filed for this immigration status that provides and a road to a green card eventually even to citizenship. Works is basically this provides an order of special costs in which this alien is able to apply for this status. One of the things we have seen is that we dont know what is in the family court records. We cannot utilize any information provided in those proceedings to validate with the information that we have because of the encounter at the border are because of the process over in the local office. Another, finance is important aspect of ms13. We have been able to identify a very complex scheme of the way they move their money. In no way shape or form are we talking money cartel type money. Were talking about money that they utilize to build to finance not only their movements but their daytoday operations. Money that is coming from the states back to the commandandcontrol in the northern part. One of the most important schools that we have in our arsenal is the designation of ms 13 as a criminal organization by the department of justice. I have numerous pages of talking give them i want to perspective from the field. When you have agent identifying based on intelligence and conducting targeted enforcement will have it be able to determine the ms 13 members and once they are presented to the immigration judge, or detention purposes, we explain that these individuals are threats to society and they are ms 13 members but we cannot provide all the information that we have. In many instances, the information we have is part of a ongoing criminal investigation. The individuals are being released. Then we have to utilize the resources and focus on these individuals that have been released. From our perspective from the field, there are many things that could be accomplished within immigration law. I can type from my perspective both what i am seeing, we have it is going out, arresting and then we have individuals that were arrested and releasing them. Efforts in 2005, isis arrested over 700 ms 13 members. In this last quarter we have ms13ble to arrest 428 members. We understand based on intelligence gathering that there are thousands of ms 13 across the country. In the seen a presence country north of us in canada as well. Is that of the matter we continue to arrest, we continue to arrest. Been able tont shut down the pipeline, they continue to come to our country. This is something we need to address to be more effective in disrupting and dismantling once s13. Or all, m we did cooperation from the democrats. We have to change the laws and that is all part of what we are tried to get approved. Right now, the way it is right now, you cant do that. Everything you do is illegal, you cant touch, you cant do anything. If we dont get those laws changed, we will do better than anybody can do. Still, it will never be satisfactory. I with a for a few examples. Thank you for inviting me to talk about ms13. As the u. S. Attorney for the District Of Columbia, my top priority is the people work year and protecting them from vicious criminal gangs like this. In working with our Law Enforcement partners, we prosecuted a number of ms 13 leaders and members for murder, maiming, racketeering and other crime. A number of those individuals are now serving prison sentences of life or even beyond. In one case, a woman took in an ms 13 gang member from her home country of el salvador and allowed to live with her and the family. The gang members began recruiting the womans son to join ms 13. When she objected, the gang member shot her in the head as she was winning at a bus stop. This was three miles from where we are sitting right now and shot her again in the head as she was lying on the ground in april of life. Miraculously, she survived. She was permanently blinded by that attack. In another case my office handle, they repeatedly stabbed and killed a 14yearold boy. This is near the Columbia Heights metro station. This is out 2. 5 miles from where we are sitting. They tapped ae, fellow ms 13 member who had removed his gang tattoos, they stabbed him at least 20 times. We believe these prosecutions took many years to build. Ms 13 and theupt District Of Columbia but we know it continues to operate here in the city as well as the store in virginia and maryland. We are particularly concerned about the International Rates including drug dealing in efforts to recruit young people. That is why we work every day with our fantastic Law Enforcement partners at ice. Also, the fbi and other agencies. Allies or our strong to dissuade young people from joining gangs like ms 13. We are very grateful for the support that you have given to our efforts. Also, from the guy who was in resources. I thank you again for the opportunity. Thank you so much. We are working to revise our immigration system. At the outset of your remarks, you talked about for killers of immigration reform. Getting rid of chain immigration, Border Security, the lottery this issue of gangs attaching themselves to each of those in a different way and i think Border Security obviously. It is not a question of border integrity or integrity preservation laws. If these people are coming through, it harms Public Safety and the interior as well. It is all connected with respect to the other three, and Immigration Program that has little to no selectivity is going to essentially allow actors to come into the country. One thing i would have a fly on what the secretary said, she in theabout the loophole priorities we have been advancing. The loophole she talked about was that there are no grounds in the long right now that permit us to deport the gang members merely because she is a gang member. We have to wait until they have killed somebody 400 american and then we have a reason to deport them. They are here unlawfully, ok. Is no grounds, similarly, there is no ground up in a disability. We cant stop them from coming there is nothing in the law that ma