Transcripts For CSPAN2 Hearing Examines Rise Of MS-13 Crime

Johnson of wisconsin. This meeting will come to order. I want to thank the witnesses for taking time for your thoughtful testimony. I think it will be pretty interesting description of a problem that i think plagues so many inner cities, and, from my standpoint, really one of the contributing factors of this is one of the Top Priorities of this committee is securing our borders. This is what, i think 25th, 25th hearing on some aspect of border security. Now the title of the hearing, border and security, the rise of ms13, other Transnational Criminal Organizations. Reading testimony well focus a lot on ms13 which is obviously in the news today. And what the witnesses tell the stories but it is kind of interesting the history of ms13, originally formed out of immigrants coming from el salavador, the war there, in california, Southern California area and then based on problems, those members being deported to Central America. The organizations grew and thrived in Central America. Now were seeing them come back sometimes in the form of unaccompanied children. I did send a letter yesterday on, as a result of information we received from whistleblower. I sent to mr. Scott lloyd, director of office of refugee and resettlement. Yesterday late, latebreaking news, because of this hearing we did, we were informed by a whistleblower of a customs and Border Protection document from july of 2014 describing an incident. This is right at the height of the surge of unaccompanied children arriving at our border. The documents appear to indicate the cpb apprehended selfidentified ms13 gang members at the border. The cpb significant incident report dated july 5th, 2014, basically stated officers assigned to the ncp. Nogales placement center, identified multiple admitted ms13 gang members. Another document goes on to quote, all identified gang members in Nogales Placement Center have been placed in the appropriate placement senter and are no longer being held at the npc. The 16 identified juvenile gang members were transferred to Placement Centers around the country, including Shenendoah Valley Juvenile Center in virginia, selma carson staff secured in washington, nova staff secure in virginia, the swk mesa staff secure in texas, childrens village, new york and Fort Still Army Training Center in oklahoma. Office of Refugee Resettlement, orr, within the department of health and Human Services was responsible and of uacs apprehended by npc. Why do i point that out . We have a broken system t was in 2002 the authorization of Homeland Security we split out the responsibility where now cpb, apprehends, processes, but turns unaccompanied children over to hhs. And weve gotten very good at apprehending, processing and dispersing. Which from my standpoint has just fueled this rise in unaccompanied children coming to the border. Certainly during the lasted a administration. So i understand what were talking about when we say unaccompanied children, i know immediately people think of little children, you know, seven, eight, nine, 10 years old, you hear the facts out of 188,000 unaccompanied children apprehended from 2012 to 2016, that includes from Central America, as well as mexico, only broken out with that, not just Central America, 68 of those unaccompanied children were 15, 16, or 17. In other words, prime gang age. By the way 68 were also men. Less than 18 were under the age of 12 or under. So the fact of the matter is, so many of the unaccompanied children are literally young men, prime gang age. We have documentation from a whistleblower, cpb apprehended them, knew they were ms13 gang members and they processed and they dispersed them into our communities. So, again, i think the purpose of this committee is to highlight these problems within our government agencies, within our government laws and procedures, to make the public aware, we can actually keep this homeland safe. So, again i appreciate the witnesses coming here to testify. Well describe the danger, the problems with ms13, the barbarity and thats what this committee is all about, holding these hearings to raise the public awareness, lay out a reality so we can actually enact Public Policy to combat it to keep the homeland safe. With that i turn it over to senator mccaskill. Thank you, i want to thank the chairman holding this hearing. There is nothing more important than getting these criminals behind bars, nothing. And if, if we have in fact in any way allowed criminals to come into our country, then there is complete agreement, i believe on every member of this committee we need to do everything we can to apprehend them and catch them. I want to begin by recognizing the three witnesses here today, and such respect for what you do every day. I know firsthand from my time as a prosecutor that people that wear the uniform in Law Enforcement in this country go to work every day not thinking about themselves but thinking about what they can do to protect. What they can do to make sure families are safe in their communities and they take a great deal of risk doing some i know your job is sometimes thankless and easy norfolks to criticize you, but i just want you to know, from the depths of my person, how much i respect what you do every day. Gang violence is certainly a huge problem in this country, and its tearing apart families and taking the lives of way too many. They prey on the weak, they prey on the vulnerable. They provide a sense of family times young people have never had and they do irreparable damage not just to the lives of their victims but also to the communities where they live. Today were here to discuss one gang in particular, ms13. A gang started in st. Louis, in the 80s and excuse me in los angeles in the 80s, and since expanded into Central America. You know, i want to recall the feeling of hopelessness i used to have when i was the prosecutor in kansas city, and we had a huge gang problem. When we would be confronted with horrific violence, it was ganginflicted and we couldnt get anybody to talk. I remember sitting in and crying with victims and explaining that if no one talks, no one goes to prison. And thats why these gangs are so insidious. Not only do they do violence, but they also, by the way they commit violence, they discourage anyone from ever speaking up in ways that can hold them accountable. And thats why im troubled that weve seen a recent trend in some places, even fewer people willing to come forward in communities that are full of people who have come to this country looking for hope from another country. And i certainly want to protect our borders. I certainly want to secure our borders. We also have to be cognizant, what we say and do has impact on peoples willingness to come forward. You exacerbate that they will come forward against gangs, we give you absolutely impossible job, to try to hold these gang members to the standards that we demand and that is, putting them in a prison for long as possibly we could put them in there and in some instances seeking the death penalty. So i, because of my sensitivity about how hard it is to get these guys, i want us to be very careful about documents that are released because sometimes information about individuals is very sensitive, even documents that the committee got ahold of last night. These documents did not come from cpb. They came from a whistleblower which we want to encourage whistleblowers. But we have to be very cautious if there is any Sensitive Information in the documents that they have been fully vetted and Law Enforcement in those communities who may be working investigations as we speak about some of these individuals, that there is nothing that in any way is released that could ever harm any of those investigations. Putting these people in prison is way more important than this hearing and so i have concerns that these documents were released so quickly and that we didnt have a chance to even view the documents on our side of the aisle until they had already been released as now part of the Public Discourse on this issue. So i understand the concern, and i share the concern, but i think weve got to be careful and cautious because at the end of the day we got to make sure were supporting you, and that is the moss important thing that we have to do. So i look forward to your testimony and i look forward to answering, asking questions about the challenges you face in get being these gang members wreaking havoc across so many communities in our country. Thank you, senator mccaskill, it is the tradition of this committee to swear in witnesses. If you will all rise and raise your right hand. Do you square that the testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god . Please be seated. Our first witness is mr. Timothy sini. Sini. Sorry about that. Police commissioner sini serves as Police Commission for Suffolk County in state of new york. Prior to his appointment as commissioner he served as deputy county executive for Public Safety in the same jurisdiction. Commissioner szini. Thank you, mr. Chairman, i warrant to thank all the members of the committee to provide testimony regarding ms13 in Suffolk County, new york, in ways we can Work Together to effectively eradicate this gang from our communities. Just briefly Suffolk County is new yorks forth large e county, situated 20 miles east of new york city, covering 911 square miles and 1000 miles of coastline on the eastern end of long island. Suffolk is comprised mostly of suburban communities with diverse poplation of approximately 1. 5 million people. Suffolk county Police Department is one of the 15 largest Police Departments in the country with 2500 sworn officers and approximately 1000 civilian he will employees. Contrary to stop you. Is your microphone working. Can we turn up the green button is on. Sure. Contrary to recent sentiments in the national media, thanks to the hardworking men and women of the Suffolk County Police Department, suffolk remains one of the safest counties of its size in the United States. Presently crime is lowest since weve been collecting reliable crime statisticses in 1975. Despite these historic reductions in crime we recently experienced a increase in Gang Violence connected to ms13. Specifically since january 1, 2016, of the 45 homicides that occurred in Suffolk County, 17 of those are believed to be linked to ms13, which is 38 of all homicides during that time period. Since 2013, 27 murders in suffolk have been attributed to ms13. Sufficient foiling county has Suffolk County has 415 identified ms13 gang members in cheeks. They have neighboring county, Nassau County and new york city. Active ms13 gang members are predominantly male and range predominantly from the age of 16 to 29. Mead hian age of ms13 recent arrestees is 18. In Suffolk County ms13 engages in a variety of criminal activity such assaults murder, drug dealing, extortion, robbery and burglaries. Intelligence indicates many ms13 gang members hold wagepaying jobs and are not focused on income generating crime of drug dealing differentiating them from the typical street gang. Rather ms13 often engages in violence for the sake of violence, to increase notoriety of the gang and to cause communities to fear the gang and its members. In fact in 2016, the most frequent reported crime committed by ms13 was assault. The signature weapon used by ms13 is the machete. As noted however ms13 members also commit murder, targeting victims they perceive as disrespecting the gang. For example, in september 2016 ms13 gang members brutally beat two young girls to death in a suburban culdesac. Nisa and kala were 15 and 16 years old. They were high school students. Shortly before the murder kala had a schoolyard argument with ms13 gang member. In owe could be race with the long island safe Streets Police force, the Suffolk County sheriff ace Department Arrest murders and theyre being prosecuted by the United States Attorneys Office. Suffolk county launched a gang eradication strategy targeting ms13 which to date resulted in over 200 ms13 arrests of more than 150 individual ms13 gang members. Our strategy is as follows. We collect a tremendous amount of intelligence on the gang with specific objective identifying ms13 gang members and hangouts. They as sign Police Officers to specific gang members and aggressively and relentlessly target members and locations where they frequent. This targeted enforcement suppresses crime, results in the collection of intelligence and generates valuable evidence for federal prosecutions down the road. As we engage in this targeted enforcement were working hand in hand with our federal Law Enforcement partners to select ms13 gang members for federal prosecution under the rico statute which is very effective tool to dismantle gangs such as ms13. We recognize however that targeted enforcement as well as enhanced patrols will not alone lead totter radcation of ms13 from our communities. As Law Enforcement weeds out gang members from you are neighborhoods we need to invest in school based and communitybased programs to reduce gang recruitment and gang enlistment. Ms13 preyses on our most vulnerable young people, if we do not provide the structure ms13 will. To this end we use arsenal of Community Based intervention strategies such as custom notification, callins, youth conflict insertions. We work closely to the school to identify at risk children early on to intervene and effective ways to prevent from joining gangs, to assist them getting out of a fang. One specific segment of our population particularly vulnerable to gang recruitment are the unaccompanied children known as uacs. 4624 uacs were placed in Suffolk County alone making it one of the largest recipients much uacs in the country. While vast majority ever children are good kids looking for better life in the United States, theyre young, unaccompanied, adjusting to new country and language seeking a sense of belonging. Some to do not have the structure or support system in place to help their transition. Due to these circumstances weve seen a small percentage. Ucas fall vick to gang recruitment and gang victimization. Vast majority of uacs live lawabiding lives vulnerability of some of these children creates a source of recruitment for ms 1. We must provide necessary support to these kids or ms13 will. Highlight ways the federal government can further as sis local government on this Public Safety issue i respectfully suggest the following. More federal prosecutors to prosecute rico cases against ms13 gang members. For example, we work with the Long Island Criminal Division of the United States Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of new york. They have only 11 line assistants and four supervisors, despite the fact with districts comparable or smaller populations have significantly more uasas. The Suffolk County Police Department could launch a Pilot Program in collaboration with the fbi and u. S. Attorneys office every ms13 arrest could be screened for possible federal prosecution. This would increase the number of prosecutions of ms13 gang member, taking dangerous individuals off our streets and likely generate significant intelligence due to incentives in the federal system for defendants to cooperate with Law Enforcement. Sick, improved intelligence sharing among Law Enforcement agencies throughout the country perhaps creating a singular database related to identifying ms13 gang members. Could include automatic notifications to local agencies when information is added regarding an individual interest to the agency. Such database would encourage multijurisdictional operations and allow more local Police Departments to target ms13 gang members in our communities. Third, additional federal funding offset patrolling costs associated with hot spot policing and in areas affected by ms13 activity. Fourth, additional federal funding to fund gang prevention programs and tied directly to number of uacs placed in our communities as they are some of the most vulnerable to ms13 recruitment. Lastly improvements to uac program, including but not limited to increased screening, compliance of monitoring of sponsors, increased funding for postplacement services. In closing i want to thank the committee for its time and its commitment to this very important issue as well as the opportunity to appe