Donald Trump said Friday at the FBI Academy in Virginia that he’d rather deport ‘savages’ in violent gangs than pay to house them in American prisons.
Speaking to graduates of a program that trains state and local law enforcement officers in FBI tactics, the president blasted the Salvadoran MS-13 gang as an example of an immigration system run amok and pledged to rid the country of them.
‘To any member of MS-13 listening, I have a message for you: We will find you, we will arrest you, we will jail you, we will throw you the hell out of the country,’ he said.
‘And somehow I like it better than jail. Jail, we have to take care of them. Who the hell wants to take care of them? You know, the jail stuff is wonderful but we have to pay for it, right?’ he ad-libbed to applause.
President Donald Trump spoke at the FBI National Academy graduation ceremony on Friday, lashing out at the MS-13 gang
This MS-13 member gives a hand signal to show his loyalty to the group inside a jail cell in San Salvador, El Salvador
These two young members of the gang pose for a photograph at the Supreme Court building in Guatemala City
Trump said that in 2017 the Department of Justice has collaborated with authorities in Central America to arrest and charge about 4,000 MS-13 members.
The Department of Homeland Security has arrested nearly 800 more, he added, an 83 per cent increase from 2016
‘We’ll get rid of them completely very soon, right?’ he asked.
‘These are killers,’ Trump said. ‘These are people that are sadists in many cases. … We don’t want them. They’re getting out of here.
The president also renewed his call for a ‘merit-based’ immigration system, citing violent terrorists who gained entrance to the U.S. through visa lotteries and relationships with family members already in the country.
‘They have a lottery. You pick people. You think the country is giving us their best people? No, what kind of a system is that?’ he asked.
‘We’re calling for Congress to end chain migration and to end the visa lottery system, and replace it with a merit-based system of immigration, Trump said.
MS-13, short for Mara Salvatrucha, consists chiefly of immigrants or descendants of immigrants from Central America.
The gang is notorious for its links to cartels and organized crime, and for its ability to access high-powered weapons.
Because of civil wars and guerrilla insurgencies in Central America, many of the gang’s founding members had paramilitary experience, making them more deadly than other criminal groups.
Its primary weapons, however, are baseball bats and machetes.
The Department of Justice classifies MS-13 as a ‘transnational criminal organization’ engaged in drug trafficking, kidnapping, human smuggling, prostitution, murder and extortion.
Trump has referred to MS-13 as ‘bad hombres.’
Because many MS-13 members are under the age of 18, the U.S. is unable to lawfully return them to their home countries.
The gang has a strong presence in Southern California, Washington and Northern Virginia, all areas with substantial Salvadoran populations.
The president said he would rather deport violent gang members than jail them because it’s expensive to house them in prisons
Members are accused of major crimes including murder, kidnapping, prostitution, drug smuggling and human trafficking
There are at least 30,000 members in a range of countries, including at least 10,000 in the United States.
Its official motto is ‘Kill, Rape, Control.’
Among the most high-profile killings attributed to MS-13 in Virginia was the 2003 slaying of a pregnant teenager who had become a police informant.
Brenda Paz, 17, was stabbed to death and her body was left along the banks of the Shenandoah River.
Thirteen other MS-13 members, ten of whom are illegal immigrants, were arrested in connection to seven slayings on New York’s Long Island over the last year.
In May two illegal immigrants affiliated with MS-13 who had a Satanic shrine in their Houston apartment were arrested for the killing of a teenager and the kidnapping of another in Texas.
Prosecutors said they kidnapped a 14-year-old girl after she left school around February 2, holding her in an apartment where she was raped by a gang member.
The pair laughed, smiled and waved in court.
Another MS-13 member was sentenced in November to 33 years in prison for the horrific torture murder of a 15-year-old girl in Maryland.
The shocking revenge killing of the teen girl was recorded on video, allowing a stunned jury to see her being stabbed and tortured on tape.
The murderer told her she would ‘see her in hell’ before stabbing her to death with a knife and a wooden stake.
MS-13 members are known for carrying our brutal murders. Above, a suspect is taken into custody on Long Island on Halloween
Also this year, as many as 10 members of MS-13 lured a Maryland man into a park, stabbed him over 100 times, decapitated him, removed his heart from his chest, and then threw it into a grave dug ahead of time along with his the body.
The grisly attack was allegedly planned two weeks in advance.
Trump delivred his most explicit verdict on the gang in August, saying during a speech in New York that ‘they kidnap, they extort, they rape and they rob. They stomp on their victims. They beat them with clubs, they slash them with machetes, and they stab them with knives.’
‘They have transformed peaceful parks and beautiful quiet neighborhoods into bloodstained killing fields. They’re animals.’
MS-13 gang members charged in Houston on suspicion of killing one teenager and kidnapping of another
Two members of MS-13, based in Houston, were charged this year on suspicion of killing one teenager and kidnapping of another.
Gang leader Miguel Angel Alvarez-Flores, 22, who also goes by ‘Diabolico,’ and 18-year-old Diego Alexan Hernandez-Rivera, who had a Satanic shrine in their Houston apartment, laughed, smiled and waved in court as they faced charges of aggravated kidnapping and murder.
Prosecutors said the two kidnapped a 14-year-old girl after she left school around February 2, holding her in an apartment where she was raped by a gang member.
Another girl kept at the apartment, named only as Genesis, was found shot dead in the head and chest on February 16, and has not yet been identified.
Miguel Alvarez-Flores (right) smiles and waves at news cameras in Houston court on Wednesday, as the gang leader known as ‘Diabolico’ and his partner 18-year-old Diego Hernandez-Rivera (left) faced charges of aggravated kidnapping and murder
Authorities released the facial reconstruction image of one of the pair’s alleged victims in a bid to identify her.
The girl – aged between 15 and 25 – was found dead on the morning of February 16.
She was also shot in the neck and torso.
Police said Rivera had confessed to leading the woman to a remote area and shooting her.
The photo was created by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children on behalf of Harris County officials.
The girl is described as being Hispanic, around five feet tall and 108 pounds.
Her hair was dark and wavy, and she had pierced ears.
She was also wearing three metal rings, one with an elephant pattern, one with leaf-like patterns, and one with small reflective stones.
A previous image of the woman, taken after she died, was released by the The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences on February 21.