Immigration, MS-13 and crime: the facts behind Donald Trump’s exaggerations

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/feb/07/donald-trump/immigration-ms-13-and-crime-facts-behind-donald-tr/

 

President Donald Trump linked illegal immigration to the violence of the MS-13 gang, claiming "open borders" have caused the death of many people in the United States.

During his State of the Union speech, Trump highlighted the 2016 killings of teenagers Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens in New York and the related murder charges against MS-13 members.

"These two precious girls were brutally murdered while walking together in their hometown. Six members of the savage MS-13 gang have been charged with Kayla and Nisa's murders," Trump said Jan. 30. "Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes and our laws to enter the country as illegal, unaccompanied, alien minors. And wound up in Kayla and Nisa's high school."

The U.S. Justice Department did not specify in a 2017 press release on the indictments if the defendants charged for the murders of Cuevas and Mickens came to the United States illegally as unaccompanied minors. We asked the department to clarify, but it referred us to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which did not provide a response by deadline.