Federal, state and local law enforcement officers continue to target Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) U.S.-Salvadoran transnational gang members nationwide.
MS-13 was designated as a foreign terrorist organization earlier this year. The gang originated in Los Angeles in the 1980s to protect Salvadoran illegal foreign nationals but later expanded its criminal enterprise. Its members engage in “campaigns of violence and terror in the United States and internationally” and present “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” President Donald Trump said in a June MS-13 FTO order.
