Latest news with #MS13
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
John Oliver on police gang databases: ‘Get rid of them'
After an extended summer holiday, John Oliver returned to his desk at Last Week Tonight to dissect US law enforcement's overreliance on faulty and unregulated gang databases. Such databases – as Oliver put it, 'basically lists the police keep of people they say are involved in gangs' – have been used to justify numerous deportations under the Trump administration, including the deportation and detention of Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadorian immigrant from Maryland whom Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) illegally deported due to what they later admitted was an 'administrative error'. The deportation stemmed from a wrongful inclusion on a gang database – in 2019, officers apparently observed Ábrego at a Home Depot and filed a report that he belonged to a gang, based on the fact that he wore a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie with 'rolls of money covering the eyes, ears and mouth of the presidents' and that they 'know such clothing to be indicative of the Hispanic gang culture'. According to the report, 'wearing the Chicago Bulls hat represents [that] they are in good standing with the MS-13'. 'Which is already a little bit weird, because it implies that somehow, if you're not up to date on your monthly MS-13 dues, your Bulls hat privileges get revoked,' Oliver joked. The officer who filed that report also cited an anonymous tip that Ábrego was a member of MS-13; the officer was also suspended a week later for unrelated misconduct and ultimately fired. 'Nevertheless, that gang allegation meant that Ábrego García was denied bond and spent months locked up in Ice detention,' Oliver explained, an outcome that was 'ridiculous. A person's clothing shouldn't be criteria for locking them up for eight months. As we all know, the worst consequence of fashion choices should be getting roasted by teens on TikTok.' Ábrego's saga is one of many stories that bring the government's use of so-called 'gang databases' into question. Around the country, many local and state police departments keep these databases, often without disclosing them, despite investigations finding them to be 'notoriously inconsistent and opaque', 'riddled with questionable entries and errors' and 'rife with unreliable intelligence', to quote several reports cited by Oliver. When it comes to what constitutes a 'gang', there's 'a lot of variability here', said Oliver. 'Not all gang members may even be engaged in crime.' As one researcher put it: 'Not all gang members are criminals, and not all criminals are gang members.' 'Unfortunately, none of that nuance is on display in these databases,' said Oliver, and none of these lists have oversight from any other branch of government or other law enforcement. The criteria for inclusion are police observations and 'self-admissions', which basically means, according to Oliver, 'We found something on your social media that we decided constitutes you admitting that you're in a gang.' That could include posts with the word 'gang', such as a post from a teenager with the caption 'happy birthday, gang', added to a database on the grounds of self-admission. 'And if the bar is that low, anything is basically a confession,' said Oliver. 'A pic of you holding a diploma with the caption 'killed it?' Congratulations, grad, but now you're wanted for murder. 'And while so far I've been saying anyone can be added to these lists, those who end up on them are heavily people of color,' he continued. At one point, Washington DC's database had only one white person on its list. 'Do you know how few lists there are with only one white guy on them?' Oliver joked. 'It's basically this database and the cast of Hamilton. That is it.' Additions can also be motivated by spite; in 2020, a cop in Phoenix registered 17 Black Lives Matter protesters as 'ACAB gang members' in retaliation. Most states also do not require states to notify people if they put them on a gang database. 'And when it comes to immigrants, the designation of gang member can be truly life-altering,' said Oliver. 'It can be the reason that someone is denied various pathways to remain in the US, and it can make someone a higher priority for deportation and the target of a raid.' Oliver relayed the story of a Hispanic teen in Long Island named Alex who was added to a gang database by a school resource officer after he was seen wearing bright blue sneakers, which school security guards told him was associated with the gang MS-13. He had also doodled '504' on his backpack, which is the country code for Honduras, his country of origin. A few months later, Ice agents arrested him, saying they heard he was a gang member, and eventually deported him. When a police commissioner in Alex's county was asked why he felt local law enforcement needed to partner with Ice, he answered: 'If we have intelligence that they are a gang member, that's not necessarily a crime … The intel that we have may not indicate a state crime. The intel may be small on them, but nothing that is going to keep them in jail. So if we perceive someone as a public safety threat, we utilize all of our tools, which again includes immigration tools, so we'll partner with the Department of Homeland Security to target them for detention.' Oliver fumed in response: 'If someone is on your list of big bad criminals, and you can't find any big bad crime to arrest them for, that suggests the issue might be your fucking list. 'It is pretty clear that gang databases are way too easy to get on, way too hard to get off, and can turn people's lives upside down,' he added. 'So what do we do? Well, I'd argue we get rid of them. And if you think, 'Well, hold on, how will police then stop gang violence?' I'd say, with police work. They could and should do actual police work focusing on where violence is concentrated, instead of fixating on labels. 'I'm not saying that violence associated with gangs isn't real or isn't a problem,' he concluded. 'I'm just saying the answer needs to go beyond policing and way beyond these databases.'
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
John Oliver on police gang databases: ‘Get rid of them'
After an extended summer holiday, John Oliver returned to his desk at Last Week Tonight to dissect US law enforcement's overreliance on faulty and unregulated gang databases. Such databases – as Oliver put it, 'basically lists the police keep of people they say are involved in gangs' – have been used to justify numerous deportations under the Trump administration, including the deportation and detention of Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadorian immigrant from Maryland whom Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) illegally deported due to what they later admitted was an 'administrative error'. The deportation stemmed from a wrongful inclusion on a gang database – in 2019, officers apparently observed Ábrego at a Home Depot and filed a report that he belonged to a gang, based on the fact that he wore a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie with 'rolls of money covering the eyes, ears and mouth of the presidents' and that they 'know such clothing to be indicative of the Hispanic gang culture'. According to the report, 'wearing the Chicago Bulls hat represents [that] they are in good standing with the MS-13.' 'Which is already a little bit weird, because it implies that somehow, if you're not up to date on your monthly MS-13 dues, your Bulls hat privileges get revoked,' Oliver joked. The officer who filed that report also cited an anonymous tip that Ábrego was a member of MS-13; the officer was also suspended a week later for unrelated misconduct and ultimately fired. 'Nevertheless, that gang allegation meant that Ábrego García was denied bond and spent months locked up in Ice detention,' Oliver explained, an outcome that was 'ridiculous. A person's clothing shouldn't be criteria for locking them up for eight months. As we all know, the worst consequence of fashion choices should be getting roasted by teens on TikTok.' Ábrego's saga is one of many stories that bring the government's use of so-called 'gang databases' into question. Around the country, many local and state police departments keep these databases, often without disclosing them, despite investigations finding them to be 'notoriously inconsistent and opaque', 'riddled with questionable entries and errors' and 'rife with unreliable intelligence', to quote several reports cited by Oliver. When it comes to what constitutes a 'gang', there's 'a lot of variability here', said Oliver. 'Not all gang members may even be engaged in crime.' As one researcher put it: 'Not all gang members are criminals, and not all criminals are gang members.' 'Unfortunately, none of that nuance is on display in these databases,' said Oliver, and none of these lists have oversight from any other branch of government or other law enforcement. The criteria for inclusion are police observations and 'self-admissions', which basically means, according to Oliver, 'We found something on your social media that we decided constitutes you admitting that you're in a gang.' That could include posts with the word 'gang', such as a post from a teenager with the caption 'happy birthday. gang', added to a database on the grounds of self-admission. 'And if the bar is that low, anything is basically a confession,' said Oliver. 'A pic of you holding a diploma with the caption 'killed it?' Congratulations grad, but now you're wanted for murder. 'And while so far I've been saying anyone can be added to these lists, those who end up on them are heavily people of color,' he continued. At one point, Washington DC's database had only one white person on its list. 'Do you know how few lists there are with only one white guy on them?' Oliver joked. 'It's basically this database and the cast of Hamilton. That is it.' Additions can also be motivated by spite; in 2020, a cop in Phoenix registered 17 Black Lives Matter protesters as 'ACAB gang members' in retaliation. Most states also do not require states to notify people if they put them on a gang database. 'And when it comes to immigrants, the designation of gang member can be truly life-altering,' said Oliver. 'It can be the reason that someone is denied various pathways to remain in the US, and it can make someone a higher priority for deportation and the target of a raid.' Oliver relayed the story of a Hispanic teen in Long Island named Alex, who was added to a gang database by a school resource officer after he was seen wearing bright blue sneakers, which school security guards told him was associated with the gang MS-13. He had also doodled '504' on his backpack, which is the country code for Honduras, his country of origin. A few months later, Ice agents arrested him, saying they heard he was a gang member, and eventually deported him. When a police commissioner in Alex's county was asked why he felt local law enforcement needed to partner with Ice, he answered: 'If we have intelligence that they are a gang member, that's not necessarily a crime … the intel that we have may not indicate a state crime. The intel may be small on them, but nothing that is going to keep them in jail. So if we perceive someone as a public safety threat, we utilize all of our tools, which again includes immigration tools, so we'll partner with the Department of Homeland Security to target them for detention.' Oliver fumed in response: 'If someone is on your list of big bad criminals, and you can't find any big bad crime to arrest them for, that suggests the issue might be your fucking list. 'It is pretty clear that gang databases are way too easy to get on, way too hard to get off, and can turn people's lives upside down,' he added. 'So what do we do? Well, I'd argue we get rid of them. And if you think, 'Well hold on, how will police then stop gang violence?' I'd say, with police work. They could and should do actual police work focusing on where violence is concentrated, instead of fixating on labels. 'I'm not saying that violence associated with gangs isn't real or isn't a problem,' he concluded. 'I'm just saying the answer needs to go beyond policing and way beyond these databases.'
New York Times
5 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Judge Demands Answers About Deal to Return MS-13 Gang Leaders to El Salvador
A federal judge on Friday ordered the Justice Department to tell her more about a deal struck between the Trump administration and President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador to imprison immigrants deported from the United States in a Salvadoran maximum-security facility in exchange for the return of top leaders of the MS-13 gang who are in U.S. custody. The order by the judge, Joan M. Azrack, came as she was considering a request by federal prosecutors on Long Island to dismiss sprawling narco-terrorism charges against Vladimir Arévalo Chávez, who is alleged to be one of those leaders, in preparation for sending him back to El Salvador. It remains unclear how the Justice Department will respond to Judge Azrack's demand for information, but her order could help pierce the veil of secrecy around the arrangement between Mr. Bukele and the Trump administration. That deal is at the heart of one of the White House's most controversial deportation efforts, which involved the expulsion in March of more than 200 Venezuelans to a prison built for terrorists in El Salvador. The Trump administration deported some of them by invoking a rarely used wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act. In exchange for taking the deportees, the Bukele government received millions of dollars from the United States, as well as the Trump administration's pledge to return top MS-13 leaders who are facing charges in federal court. An investigation by The New York Times found that the returning of the gang leaders to El Salvador was threatening a long-running federal investigation into the upper echelons of MS-13. Prosecutors had amassed substantial evidence of ties between the gang and the Bukele administration — and had been scrutinizing Mr. Bukele himself, The Times found. Judge Azrack recently said that U.S. government had detailed in court filings allegations of 'extraordinary and corrupt arrangements between MS-13 and the Salvadoran government.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Al Jazeera
24-07-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
US court decisions allow for Abrego Garcia's release, bar his deportation
A United States judge has blocked immigration authorities from immediately detaining and deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia upon his release from jail. The decision was part of a one-two punch on Wednesday, as two courts weighed in on the Maryland father's fate. Abrego Garcia was catapulted into the national spotlight in March after the administration of President Donald Trump wrongfully deported him to his native El Salvador, despite a court order protecting him from removal. His case became emblematic of the early days of Trump's mass deportation drive, with critics accusing the president of taking a slapdash approach that violated the due process of the law. In recent weeks, Abrego Garcia has been held in a Tennessee prison, as the Trump administration pursues criminal charges against him. But in one of Wednesday's twin rulings, US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw in Nashville upheld the finding that Abrego Garcia could be released from jail, rejecting Trump administration claims that he might be a danger or a flight risk. Crenshaw also expressed doubt about the Trump administration's claims that Abrego Garcia is a member of the gang MS-13, citing a lack of evidence. His decision allows Abrego Garcia to potentially be released from detention as he awaits a January trial on human smuggling charges. Still, his release has been once again delayed for a period of 30 days, at the request of Abrego Garcia's lawyers, who fear he could be deported. Simultaneously on Wednesday, a second court hearing was unfolding in Maryland under US District Judge Paula Xinis. She has been hearing arguments about Abrego Garcia's wrongful deportation to El Salvador, as part of a lawsuit filed by his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura. Given that Trump officials have signalled they plan to deport Abrego Garcia if he is released, Xinis issued a ruling requiring that immigration officials to give him notice of three business days if they initiate removal proceedings. The Trump administration, Xinis wrote, has 'done little to assure the court that, absent intervention, Abrego Garcia's due process rights will be protected'. Xinis also ordered the government to restore the legal status that Abrego Garcia had previously been under, which allowed him to live and work in Maryland. Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March, in violation of an immigration judge's 2019 order barring him from being sent back to his home country. His lawyers have maintained that Abrego Garcia fled El Salvador as a teenager to avoid gang threats. The government acknowledged that Abrego Garcia's removal to El Salvador had been the result of an 'administrative error'. Judge Xinis — and later the US Supreme Court — ultimately ruled that the Trump administration had a responsibility to 'facilitate' his return to the US. But the Trump administration doubled down, arguing that Abrego Garcia's removal was lawful and painting him as a member of MS-13. Trump even posted a picture of himself to social media holding a photo of Abrego Garcia's knuckles, with the letters and numbers for 'MS-13' digitally superimposed on each finger, next to real tattoos of a smiley face and marijuana leaf. 'He's got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles,' Trump wrote, falsely, on April 18. Judge Xinis had threatened to find the Trump administration in contempt of court for failing to adequately facilitate Abrego Garcia's release, or provide meaningful updates. Officials had argued that they had little power to bring him back, given that he was held in El Salvador. But in early June, the Trump administration abruptly announced Abrego Garcia's return to the US. At the same time, the Justice Department revealed it had obtained an indictment to criminally charge Abrego Garcia. At the centre of the government's case is a video from a November 2022 traffic stop, showing Abrego Garcia driving a Chevrolet Suburban SUV with three rows of seats. A police officer heard in the footage speculates that the nine passengers could be involved in human smuggling, but no charges were brought at that time. His lawyers have dismissed the government's case as 'preposterous'. Still, before Xinis's ruling, the lawyers had requested Abrego Garcia remain in custody as he awaits trial, for fear that he might be immediately deported if released. While Abrego Garcia cannot be sent to El Salvador again, the Trump administration has maintained he can be legally deported to a third country, even one where he has no personal ties. Last month, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could, at least in the short term, continue to deport individuals to such third-party countries while legal challenges proceed against the practice. Some of those third-party countries have included South Sudan and Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, both of which have faced accusations of human rights abuses in their prisons. A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security took to the social media platform X on Wednesday to criticise Xinis's latest ruling. 'The fact this unhinged judge is trying to tell ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] they can't arrest an MS-13 gang member, indicted by a grand jury for human trafficking, and subject to immigration arrest under federal law is LAWLESS AND INSANE,' spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin wrote, reiterating unproven claims. Abrego Garcia's lawyers, however, applauded Wednesday's court decisions. 'These rulings are a powerful rebuke of the government's lawless conduct and a critical safeguard for Kilmar's due process rights,' lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said in a statement.
Reuters
23-07-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Wrongly deported migrant Abrego scores legal wins, but remains behind bars
WASHINGTON, July 23 (Reuters) - Kilmar Abrego, the migrant whose wrongful deportation to El Salvador made him a symbol of President Donald Trump's aggressive immigration policies, won two key victories in U.S. courts on Wednesday but will remain behind bars on human smuggling charges for now. In dual rebukes to the Trump administration after Abrego was brought back to the U.S. to face the charges, one federal judge ruled that he must be released on bail, and another ruled that authorities must give his lawyers three days' notice before they try to deport him again to a different country. 'These rulings are a powerful rebuke of the government's lawless conduct and a critical safeguard for Kilmar's due process rights," Abrego's lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said in a statement. Still, Abrego will remain in criminal custody in Tennessee for at least 30 days. His lawyers, while pushing for his release on bail, had asked that any such order be delayed given the risk that immigration authorities could swiftly detain and deport him upon his exit from jail. Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin in a statement accused Abrego of being a member of the Salvadoran gang MS-13 and said he "will never walk America's streets again." Abrego denies being part of the gang. Abrego, 29, a Salvadoran migrant who had been living in Maryland, was deported and imprisoned in El Salvador in March despite a 2019 judicial ruling that he could not be sent there because of a risk of gang persecution. That prompted Trump's critics to argue that his administration was infringing on legal rights as it moved aggressively to deport millions of migrants living illegally in the U.S. Abrego then challenged that deportation in a civil lawsuit before U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Greenbelt, Maryland. The U.S. Supreme Court in April upheld Xinis' order that the administration facilitate Abrego's return. In June, U.S. officials brought Abrego back to the U.S. after securing an indictment accusing him of transporting migrants in the U.S. illegally as part of a smuggling ring. Abrego has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has been held in criminal custody in Tennessee since his return. His lawyers have accused the Trump administration of bringing the charges to cover up violations of his rights. U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Nashville, Tennessee last month granted Abrego's request to be released ahead of his trial. But Abrego's lawyers later asked Holmes not to release Abrego right away, citing the risk he would be detained and deported to a country other than El Salvador. Federal prosecutors challenged Holmes' ruling. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw rejected that challenge, writing that prosecutors had not shown sufficient evidence that Abrego posed a public safety threat or was a flight risk to justify his continued detention ahead of trial. But he said the government was entitled to another hearing over whether to detain Abrego due to their allegation that he sometimes transported children. After Crenshaw's order on Wednesday, Holmes said she would delay her order for release by at least 30 days. In a simultaneous decision on Wednesday, Xinis ruled that if Abrego is released from criminal custody, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement could not detain him in Tennessee. She also ruled that his immigration case must be returned to Maryland, and that he must be notified at least three days before any deportation to a third country. On Xinis' ruling, McLaughlin said, "The fact this unhinged judge is trying to tell ICE they can't arrest someone who is subject to immigration arrest under federal law is insane." Xinis' order did not bar immigration authorities in Maryland from taking him into custody.
