Mara Salvatrucha, a k a MS-13, is a Central American-based gang best known for the bizarrely intricate tattoos worn by its members — and for killing people.
Especially for killing people.
So you’d think that when an illegal-immigrant MS-13 gang-banger turned up in NYPD custody, the de Blasio administration would quick as a wink deposit him with the feds.
Not so. New York is a sanctuary city — the mayor and City Council having embraced the contempt for law and custom that the term implies. So last week, MS-13 stalwart Estivan Rafael Marques Velasquez tap-danced away from Rikers Island following a short stint for disorderly conduct — never mind that immigration enforcement officials had requested that he be turned over to them.
“This man is by his own admission a member of a violent street gang,” Thomas Decker, field office director for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit in New York, told Post reporters. “Honoring a detainer request is not about politics, it is about keeping New York citizens safe.”
Ah, but in New York, it certainly is about politics — the “we’re above the law” sanctuary-city movement having devolved into another dreary vehicle for flipping the bird to President Trump.
Street gangs are nothing new to New York. But while classic gangs tended to avoid harm to innocents — children in particular — MS-13 targets them.
The gang has its roots in Salvadoran prison culture, but it has long since moved beyond that — first hiring out as drug-cartel enforcers and eventually moving into the trade itself. Its appetite for casual, seemingly pointless violence has placed it in a category all its own.
On Monday, 26-year-old gang member Michael Christopher Mejia — who sports both the trademark MS-13 face and neck tattoos and an appallingly long record of violent crime — was charged with the murder of one Whittier, Calif., cop and the wounding of another. Just hours earlier, police said, Mejia had murdered a relative.
At a glance, this seems like just another garden-variety — though tragic — crime spree. And it certainly is nothing out of the ordinary for Southern California, which has long been in the gang’s vicious grip.
But it does serve to underscore one undeniable fact: Where MS-13 goes, gross violence follows. Consider:
- Last October, Long Island police busted 35 alleged MS-13 members in connection with the discovery of the remains of six gang-related murder victims in less than a month. One of the casualties was 15. Authorities say the town of Brentwood has been “terrorized” by the gang for years.
- In Plainfield, NJ, last year, eight MS-13 members were convicted in federal court in connection with at least four murders.
- In Lawrence, Mass., 60 gang members have been charged by the feds in a variety of killings — including the machete murder of a 16-year-old boy.
- In suburban Washington, DC, five MS-13 members, including four illegal aliens, were just charged with a single count of murder — a remarkable display of restraint given the gang’s conspicuous contempt for life.
All of this is just scum off the top of the pond. Law enforcement officials are under no illusions about the MS-13 threat.
And so it’s impossible to believe that the NYPD is unaware of the danger — and in any way condones the catch-and-release approach embraced by de Blasio & Co. regarding illegal aliens in general, and MS-13 in particular.
But good cops follow the orders of their elected superiors — as they should and must — who have developed an intricate list of offenses that merit the attention of federal immigration officers.
Being in America illegally isn’t on the list, sad to say, and neither is “disorderly conduct” — thus Marques Velasquez was kicked free last week. Happily, the feds swiftly scooped him up.
Indeed, left to their own devices, US Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents seem to sort things out rather quickly. Last week, ICE cops in New York corralled 40 illegal immigrants almost overnight — and it turned out that, in addition to immigration violations, 95 percent of them had serious criminal convictions.
The bust horrified the usual suspects — “Shame on ICE!” scolded the New York Immigration Coalition — and no doubt the mayor disapproved. Also, MS-13.
But New York City doesn’t need illegal-immigrant gang-bangers wandering its streets. Keep up the good work, ICE.
Bob McManus is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.