Caught In Raging MS-13 Crossfire: Teens Unlawfully Detained In Gang Sweeps, NYCLU, Attorney Says

BELLPORT, NY — After a recent vow in Suffolk County by President Donald Trump to take down the violent MS-13 street gang, who the president says has turned quiet communities into "blood-stained killing fields," the focus has been on a fierce crackdown by law enforcement meant to eradicate the vicious threat and restore a sense of peace and safety.

But there are innocent young victims caught in the crossfire, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union and an attorney representing the teens, who, advocates say, have been wrongly accused of MS-13 gang affiliation or ties.

One young man from the South Country School District in Bellport has been rounded up and sent miles from home to Virginia, far from his terrified mother, who barely speaks English — all because he made a hand gesture in the hallway at school, his attorney Peter Brill said.

Other teens have been unfairly targeted as being involved with MS-13, one because he was wearing a Chicago Bulls shirt, Brill said.

Some believe the hysteria is mounting after Trump's visit, during which the president vowed, "We're going to destroy the vile criminal cartel MS-13."

MS-13 members, Trump said, are brutally violent. "They don't like shooting people because it's too quick, it's too fast," he said. Instead, they "knife them, cut them, let them die slowly because it's more painful. These guys are animals."

Suffolk County has become the epicenter of an international effort to battle escalating MS-13 violence after the gruesome discovery of four bodies in Central Islip on Long Island in April — the four young men are believed to have been victims of the deadly MS-13 street gang — as lawmakers, educators and a horrified public try to shine a light on MS-13 and seek answers on how to stem the tide of murder and crime.

MS-13, which was formed in Los Angeles in the 1980s by immigrants fleeing El Salvador's civil war, is known for its brutal violence, including machete attacks and home invasions.

As local small towns reel from the killings on their quiet streets, law enforcement is fighting back: As the war on deadly street gangs heats up across Long Island and the nation, a new crackdown recently netted 39 MS-13 arrests in 30 days, according to officials.

But while civil rights activists say they understand the need to eradicate MS-13, their concern is for the young people who are swept up with gang members unfairly, simply because they may have been wearing the wrong T- shirt or used a hand gesture that was incorrectly surmised to mean the teen was an MS-13 gang member.

As many as nine teens, ranging in age from 14 to 17, may have been unfairly targeted so far across Suffolk County, reports indicate.

The end result said Irma Solis, director of the NYCLU's Suffolk County Chapter, is a blanket of terror enveloping immigrant communities across Long Island.

"Parents are very scared," she said.

While Sister Margaret Smyth of the North Fork Apostolate in Riverhead said there have been no major U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, to her knowledge in Suffolk County, Solis said that doesn't mean ICE isn't sparking a backlash of fear.

"They are doing it in a very subtle and a very individual way," Solis said. "ICE is coming to folks' homes, stopping them on their way to work. We have had young boys who have been suspended from schools and have had no criminal records or any contact with police — but somehow, that information reached ICE and ICE picked them up."

The NYCLU's concern is that students picked up by ICE have not been told they're on any kind of list and have thereby been unable to contest the situation or unfair MS-13 label, even if they personally are not gang members — those teens are being denied their due process rights, Solis said.

"We recognize that these communities have seen MS-13 violence and families have lost loved ones," Solis said.

But having a teen picked up and unfairly detained, she said, has its own damaging impacts. "We are also seeing families that are being separated. These kids are the collateral damage. Picked up and transferred many miles from their families and attorneys," Solis said.

She added that "given some of the allegations made by the schools," the teens were never told they were suspected of gang activity, and "the evidence is not very strong. We speak to other students, and it seems like they were put on a list by speaking to someone who might be in a gang, or by wearing a shirt."

The school districts in question, she said, include the South Country Central School District as well as some kids picked up in Huntington Station and Brentwood.

Shining light on what's happening is critical, Solis said; the NYCLU has been seeking to interview students who have been suspended and then picked up by ICE.

"We want to make people aware that yes, there's MS-13 violence, but we're trying to make sure local law enforcement is going about it in a way that's going to promote safety — and not targeting particular individuals," Solis said.

Unfair profiling has led to widespread fear in the community, with an immigrant community already unsure about speaking out even more afraid to reach out to local law enforcement if they have been threatened by gang members, Solis said.

"The community gets the idea that they don't have anywhere to turn," Solis said.

Local youth might be afraid to contact school officials or police if they know of gang activity — because they might be afraid doing so would mean they, too, would end up on a list, just for knowing a gang member, she said.

Seeking solutions

The NYCLU, Solis said, has sent letters to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, an entity that oversees the unaccompanied minors program, letting it know about the NYCLU's concerns and asking it to "take a close look and conduct their own, independent investigation with respect to the allegations, to let them know that the way ICE is going about it is violating the Flores Settlement Agreement."

According to humanrightsfirst.org, in 1985, two organizations filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of immigrant children who had been detained by the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS, "challenging procedures regarding the detention, treatment, and release of children. After many years of litigation, including an appeal to the United States Supreme Court, the parties reached a settlement in 1997."

That settlement imposed several obligations on the immigration authorities, including that the government is required to release children from immigration detention without unnecessary delay, to place them in the least restrictive setting if suitable placement is not immediately available, and that standards of care must be implemented, the site said.

A climate of fear

While a climate of fear has existed for years in an immigrant community in shadows, "once it became clear that the current administration was going to work with and collaborate with local law enforcement," an already existing fear of police has intensified, Solis said.

People who already weren't feeling comfortable are now fearful that anyone arrested for a misdemeanor or felony could have their information shared with ICE, if officers believed the individuals were either engaged in gang activity or were in some way related to gang activity, Solis said.

"Once the word got out in the community, it created another level of fear," she said.

In addition, the community is afraid Trump's administration might not only be looking at unaccompanied minors but also parents who had anything to do with bringing those young people to the United States.

"Parents are even more afraid, and can't talk about what's going on, because they're thinking, 'They could be coming for me,'" Solis said.

The NYCLU's stance is not to allow MS-13 gang members to continue acts of carnage, Solis said.

"Gang members should be stopped. That's very different. But what we are seeing is people who are just being labeled — and the consequences are dire," she said.

The parents of some kids who may have been unfairly suspended or detained are afraid to send them back to school, Solis said.

"It's real. Parents are saying, 'We are fortunate to get our son back. I don't know that I want him to go back to a school where he's already been labeled and accused,'" she said.

And for the kids detained, ripped from their families — Brill said there is one teen currently being held in Virginia — the experience is "very traumatizing," Solis said. "Remember — these are kids who've come from countries to escape violence."

Their families, she said, had to make the decision to send them away to flee danger — and so the idea of deportation puts the child once again in grave danger, Solis said.

"One mom said, If my son were deported back to our country, he runs a greater risk of having a gang come after him, because supposedly, he was deported because he was in a gang. Except, he isn't a gang member," Solis said.

Attorney Brill said he's representing five teens, all between 16 and 19, and others have been picked up in Brentwood, he said.

Only one right now, from the South Country School District in Bellport, is currently being detained in Virginia, Brill said.

What he's seeing, Brill said, is students suspended "for doing something minor and stupid in school, at best," such as drawing graffiti on their locker or wearing a Chicago Bulls shirt to school — the shirt, he said, has horns, and "police claim MS-13 symbols have horns, so it's gang related. From our kid's perspective, it was the only clean shirt in the house."

Teens targeted, Brill said, are "hardly literate." Growing up in Central America, they were not sent to school and may be behind in grade level. The teens, he said, were "sent here because they were afraid for their lives, threatened by gang members in their own country."

After suspending the teens, schools consult with a Suffolk County Police officer assigned to the district to determine if the incident was "gang related. What started out as school misconduct, at worst, has now placed them on a list shared with immigration," Brill said.

The student currently being detained was one of two teens making the hand gestures, Brill added. "I don't know why one gets picked up and the other one doesn't," Brill said. A school resource officer said the gesture was "consistent" with the hand gestures made by gang members, the lawyer added.

The teen, 16, is detained pending a hearing. His mother is not well educated, barely speaks English, and does not understand the legal system or what is happening to her son, Brill said.

"The way I compare this is by saying, When you were a kid in the 80s and you liked heavy metal and drew pentagrams on your notebook, it didn't mean you were in a Satanic cult. Or if you were punk, with combat boots, it didn't mean you were looking to overthrow the government," Brill said.

"It's not illegal to be a gang member. It is illegal to commit crimes."

Bottom line, Brill said — belonging to a gang isn't against any laws.

"It's not illegal to be a gang member. It is illegal to commit crimes," he said.

Membership in any community group is not illegal, unless "they decided to burn down buildings," he added.

And most important, Brill said, "These kids are not even gang members. They're the opposite of members."

Brill said it's totally understandable how MS-13 and the violent murders committed in Suffolk County over the past year "would make people scared. We understand that police need to show results. But the pressure to show results has led to what we believe to be overzealous immigration and law enforcement profiling of anyone from these areas of the world, which is leading to these very unjust outcomes."

When asked about the teen allegedly detained unlawfully, Suffolk County Police sent the following statement by email:

"The Suffolk County Police Department will continue to aggressively target MS-13. Since September 2016, the Suffolk County Police have made over 250 MS-13 arrests of approximately 180 individual gang members. We have also worked closely with the FBI and the United States Attorney’s Office to build RICO cases against more than 20 MS-13 gang members, including the murderers in 8 MS-13 homicides.

"In addition, when we have reliable intelligence that an individual is an active MS-13 gang member and he or she is not legally present in the United States, we work with the Department of Homeland Security to target those gang members for detention and removal. This multi-pronged gang eradication strategy is producing outstanding results for the residents of Suffolk County," Suffolk County Police Commissioner Timothy D. Sini said.

Sister Margaret Smyth, meanwhile, maintains that the immigrant community she works with through the North Fork Spanish Apostolate is not letting fear of ICE dictate their lives.

"Peope are walking into my office by the dozens, going to beaches, going to work," she said. "It’s not enough to make them sit in the house and hide."

Heartbreaking loss

For those directly impacted by the quadruple homicide in Central Islip, the heartbreak is deeply personal.
The four young men found dead on the night of April 12 at Central Islip Recreation Village Park suffered trauma from a sharp-edged instrument. They were only 16, 18, 18 and 20 years old, their lives just beginning.

One of the victims, Jorge Tigre, a Bellport High School honor student, was also not a gang member and allegedly became a target after he refused to associate with gang members following the murder of two girls in Brentwood, Nisa Mickens and Kayla Cuevas, who were murdered in September by MS-13 gang members with machetes, according to a Newsday report.

Thirteen MS-13 members were charged with seven murders, including those of Mickens and Cuevas, that occurred in Brentwood and Central Islip over the past several years.

Tigre's sister Monica Tigre, in an interview with Patch, declined to discuss what may have led to her brother's murder but said she and her family are left with only memories.

"The only thing I can said he was a wonderful person. He was always smiling and helping my family and me. I will remember him — his smile and his kindness," Tigre said.

Superintendent of Schools Dr. Joseph Giani of the South Country Central School District did not immediately return a call or email requesting comment.

Patch courtesy photo of an MS-13 gang hand signal.