What Is MS-13? Trump Blames Obama For Rise Of Gang After Bodies Found In New York

In an early morning tweet Tuesday, President Donald Trump leveled blame at his predecessor for the rise of notorious gang MS-13 in recent years.

“The weak illegal immigration policies of the Obama. Admin. allowed bad MS 13 gangs to form in cities across U.S. We are removing them fast!” Trump tweeted.

The message came hours before Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the Justice Department’s intention to double down on efforts to stop the street gang.

“Just a few days ago, law enforcement believes that members of MS-13 murdered four young men and dumped their bodies in a park on Long Island,” Sessions said during prepared remarks Tuesday.

Police in Suffolk County, Long Island, discovered the bodies of four males, aged 16 to 20 in a park in the town of Central Islip last week. Officials said they believed MS-13 was responsible for the slayings.

Read: MS-13 Gang Behind Long Island Killings, Police Say

MS-13, formally called Mara Salvatrucha, had been operating on Long Island and elsewhere for some time. First founded as a Los Angeles street gang in the 1980s, the organization since expanded to every state in the country with an estimated 10,000 members. The members are mostly Salvadoran nationals or first generation Salvadoran-Americans, as well as Hondurans, Guatemalans, Mexicans and other Central and South American immigrants. MS-13 was recently expanding its membership at a “moderate” rate, often targeting middle and high school students for recruitment, according to the FBI's analysis of the group.

The four bodies found on Long Island “suffered from significant trauma throughout their body with a sharp-edged instrument,” said Suffolk County Police Commissioner Timothy Sini in a press conference last week, noting that “the manner in which they had been killed was consistent with the modus operandi of MS-13.”

Police arrested 13 suspected members of the gang in Long Island in March for at least seven murders in the town of Brentwood, including two teenaged girls.

“For far too long in Long Island, MS-13 has been meting out its own version of the death penalty against members of their gang who violate their so-called ‘rules,’ against rival gang members they seek to eliminate over disputes, and anyone else they decide they want to seek revenge against for any reason they so choose,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Robert Capers said in a press conference at the time.

The 13 unidentified gang members were set to be charged with the seven murders as well as a number of other indictments including arson, racketeering and assault. Ten of the people arrested were in the country illegally, police said, while two possessed green cards and one was a U.S. citizen.

“We’re under no illusion that MS-13 is still operating in Suffolk County,” said Sini. “No doubt, we’re made tremendous progress. But this is a long-term war. And make no mistake about it, it’s a war.”