The president relishes lurid tales of the criminal gang MS-13. Last year, he said, “They stomp on their victims. They beat them with clubs. They slash them with machetes, and they stab them with knives. They have transformed peaceful parks and beautiful quiet neighborhoods into bloodstained killing fields.”
No one disputes that MS-13 is a violent gang, but it’s just one of many that plague American cities. All that distinguishes this one is that many of its members came from Central America, some without documents—allowing Trump to blame its villainy on illegal immigration. He thinks undocumented immigrants are criminals by definition and therefore a hellish danger.
But he’s railing against a threat that exists largely in his mind. Trump failed to notice that the big wave of unauthorized immigration that came in the 1990s coincided with a plunge in crime and violence.
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