Full-Scale Response: A Report on the Department of Justice’s Efforts to Combat MS-13 from 2016-2020
By the U.S. Department of Justice
La Mara Salvatrucha (“MS-13”) is a violent street gang that operates as a transnational criminal organization (“TCO”) and has been designated as such by federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of the Treasury. MS-13 operates in the United States, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, and other countries. Each year, MS-13 is responsible for violent crimes in the United States, including murders, extortion, arms and drug trafficking, assaults, rapes, human trafficking, robberies, and kidnappings. For decades, MS-13 has exploited weaknesses in U.S. immigration enforcement policies to move its members in and out of the United States and to recruit new members who have arrived in the United States illegally.3 Moreover, MS-13 has infiltrated both cities and suburbs of the United States and established cliques in California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia,
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This report describes the Department’s work to dismantle La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) in the United States and abroad. The data show that since 2016, the Department has prosecuted approximately 749 MS-13 gang members. So far, more than 500 of these MS-13 gang members have been convicted, including 37 who received life sentences. Department prosecutors are using more than 20 federal criminal statutes to prosecute MS-13 members, including, for the first time, filing terrorism charges against MS-13’s leadership. The data also show that for decades MS-13 has exploited weaknesses in border enforcement policies, as approximately 74 percent of the defendants prosecuted were unlawfully present in the United States. The report also describes the Department’s efforts to combat MS-13 internationally through increased partnerships with law enforcement in Mexico and Central America. Through international cooperation, hundreds of MS-13 members have been arrested abroad and more than 50 MS-13 members have been extradited to the United States.
Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 2022. 17p.