Mother of an MS-13 victim killed at her daughter's memorial site.

a reply to: SofaKing

It goes beyond that. The origins of MS 13, started during the cold war and the policies of the USA, about stopping the Soviet Union, no matter what or where. And in those actions, the US violated peoples rights, like voting for leaders, in an effort to stop the Soviets from gaining a foot hold of influence. Countries that did not toe the line, were often ignored or isolated, when the leader turned around and said no.

So take the MS 13. The US had been supporting the dictatorship in El Salvidor, and there was an open civil war that broke, out. When it turned out that the US was backing the dictatorship, and caused this mess, there were people trying to flee from the fighting. The problem is that in most of the countries in Central and South America, conflicts very rarely stay within the confines of a boarder, one side or the other moving cross borders to get a bit of rest and move supplies.

Well the US took in those refugees, settling them in the LA area. They settled into one neighbor hood, with others from El Salvidor, who had come before, the area having a large Mexican and African American population there. It started out as a means of protection, but quickly grew. The children of these refugee's had already seen what war was like, and were use to it. Instead of trying to rehabilitate these initial gang members, they did what most in the US would do, imprison and then deport them.

So by deporting them back to El Salvidor, they ended up there, and starting to spread their ideas to other, starting to groom and train them. In that time frame the US drug war had taken out the Columbian drug lords, and the Mexican gangs who were the middle men, took over, thus hiring MS 13, giving them credibility. And that is the start of the problem. This is not a problem that President Trump started, but in his zeal for pushing votes and playing on fears, he only brought up one gang that was started in the US, made worse by US policies.

What is ignored is all of the other gangs out there, that are just as bad and just as dangerous. However, we are not deporting them, or shipping our problems to another country, cause it is politically convenient. No one is talking about them at all, unless there is something big, that catches the news at the time.