INTERVIEW – JESSICA VAUGHAN – Director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies – discussed Immigration and CIS report on MS-13 Wednesday morning. 

• CIS REPORT Key findings: We found 506 MS-13 members arrested or charged with crimes that were reported in 22 states. The most cases were reported in California (92), Maryland (85), New York (80), and Virginia (63). MS-13 crimes are not primarily petty nuisance crimes; 207 MS-13 members were charged with murder. In addition we found more than 100 accused of conspiracy/racketeering, and dozens of others for drug trafficking, sex trafficking, attempted murder, sexual assaults, and extortion. While most of the reports of MS-13 suspects in our case set did not include information on the immigration status of the individual, we could determine that 126 of the 506 suspects (and 38 of the 207 murder suspects) were illegal aliens. The median age of MS-13 gang members identified was 23, and suspects ranted in age from 14 to 57. The median age of their victims was 19, and victims ranged in age from 14 to 74. Sixty of the victims were under the age of 18, including 52 of the murder victims. 120 of the 506 MS-13 suspects in our case set arrived as UACs (Unaccompanied Alien Children), including 48 of the murder suspects. The location of these MS-13 crimes corresponds with locations of large numbers of UACs who were resettled by the federal government. The number of MS-13-related murders in Montgomery County, Md. has gone from about one a year to seven in the last two years.