By the start of U.S. President Donald Trump’s first term, violence in El Salvador and northern Central America had transformed migration: Many looked north not to improve their lives, but to save them. On Long Island, young Central Americans expelled by violence came to a place not only rejecting their refugee status, but often pushing them to join the gangs they fled.
Local residents say this building in the San Jacinto neighborhood of San Salvador is occupied by gang members. Most residents have had to flee their homes due to the presence of gangs who subsequently occupied the vacant houses. In 2016, El Salvador had the second-highest rate of internal displacement due to violence in the world, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, surpassed only by Syria.
A police operation carried out on the night of May 24, 2017, in Sonsonate, El Salvador, aimed to arrest members of the Mara Salvatrucha who had occupied the homes of local residents. According to police, dozens of residents of the cantons Los Alemanes and Talcomunca, in the municipality of Izalco, had been expelled from their homes. In 2016, Sonsonate had the third-highest homicide rate in the country among municipalities with over 50,000 inhabitants.
An alleged member of the Mara Salvatrucha is arrested and charged with terrorism and restricting the movement of people during a police operation in the Talcomunca district of Izalco, Sonsonate. As of 2017, official reports indicated that there were more than 100,000 gang members in the “Northern Triangle” of Central America: between 30,000 and 60,000 in El Salvador (data from the Ministry of Justice and Public Security), 15,000 in Guatemala (Civil Intelligence Directorate), and 25,000 in Honduras (Honduran National Police).
A dog barks at a gas station in San Jacinto. On the afternoon of May 23, 2017, a couple on a motorcycle stopped to fill up at the same location when gang members subdued and killed them minutes later, in a nearby alley. One resident suspects that the gang members thought the man belonged to a rival gang because of the shoes he was wearing.
A suspected member of the Mara Salvatrucha gets out of a police vehicle after being arrested during an operation in Sonsonate. Data shows that gang-related violence in the 2010s caused a wave of refugees fleeing to countries such as Mexico, Belize, and the United States. According to the UNHCR, the number of people from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala seeking asylum worldwide increased sevenfold between 2010 and 2015.
Bloodstains dampen the ground beside the Pan-American Highway between San Salvador and Santa Ana after the murder of a man on the night of May 25, 2017. The location of the crime and the type of gunshot wounds led investigators to believe that it was an execution carried out by gang members. El Salvador ended 2016 with 5,278 homicides (14.4 per day), a rate of 81.2 per 100,000 inhabitants. El Salvador then led Central America in violence, considered the most violent region in the world.
The Brentwood station of the Long Island Rail Road is a waypoint for Central Americans in New York State. Suffolk County, on Long Island, has the fifth-largest Central American population in the U.S. and is one of the destinations for growing Central American immigration. This island off the coast of New York City was one of the main destinations for the 68,000 unaccompanied Central American minors who entered the U.S. illegally in 2014.
Don Mario belongs to another generation of migrants. Or refugees. He was born in Chalatenango, El Salvador, but has lived on Long Island for 15 years. He says he fled because of problems with gang members and mobsters: “If I had stayed, they would have killed me.” Now he lives off whatever he can find, often working repairing roofs. With the gang problem on Long Island, he believes it is best to be careful and “not talk.” But at this point, they don't scare him: “I come from war. I've seen penises rolling in the street and women cut into pieces.”
Obdulio Salvador de León’s parents left Guatemala and headed north to escape threats against his father when he won the municipal elections in his town in the department of Petén. A legal resident of the United States, Obdulio is the local leader of the citizen patrol known as the Brentwood Guardian Angels. The group emerged in this city in response to gang violence. Obi One, as he is known within the group, believes that MS-13 has power in Brentwood, “but it’s not like there, in El Salvador, where the police fear them.”
The Brentwood Guardian Angels is a group of 17 members mostly of Latin American origin. The organization was founded in 1979 in The Bronx, in New York City, to address insecurity in the neighborhood. Although it is an unarmed group that advocates for passive surveillance, there have been some cases of excessive violence or reporting of false crimes to generate publicity. During a street patrol in Brentwood, it becomes clear that these vigilantes have the support of many fellow citizens.
On July 28, 2017, President Donald Trump traveled to Brentwood to discuss nine homicides that had occurred in just six months in the area: “The MS-13 gang is particularly violent. They don't like to shoot people because it’s too fast. I read that one of these animals explained that he liked to cut them up and let them die slowly, because it was more painful and they liked to watch them die... They are animals.” Over the next week, Trump linked gang violence to Central American immigration and used it to campaign on the need to eliminate “sanctuary cities,” places where police do not arrest undocumented immigrants, and to increase deportations of Latinos.
The Church of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Wyandanch, Long Island, offers services in Spanish and has for decades been a gathering place for a large percentage of Central Americans in the area. The priest who runs it, Father Bill Brisotti, is a follower of El Salvador’s Monsignor Óscar Arnulfo Romero and for 15 years coordinated a shelter attached to the church. Brisotti says that the arrival in 2017 of President Trump complicated life for immigrants. “The situation is getting worse every day with that clown we have for president. All the fear that has been created makes people afraid to call the police if they see an act of violence or a crime.”
Carlos (pseudonym) is a young Central American refugee. Now 18, he was a young man among many who arrived during the “Central American refugee crisis” that began in 2014 and made U.S. headlines. Carlos fled his home in Cuscatlán, El Salvador, because of the gangs. “I was in a place where the MS was on one side and the 18, the rival gang, was on the other. Every now and then, they would stop me and ask me to join them, saying that if I didn’t, something bad would happen to me. I would tell them no.”
School buses wait near Brentwood High School, which has a high percentage of Central Americans. Many young people new to the school join gangs. Carlos Argueta, a former gang member and social worker at a Long Island high school, explains it this way: “Some come and have only studied third or fourth grade there. Others come prepared, and we put them all together in the same ESL classroom. They join [gangs] for protection, to have friends and girlfriends. But the biggest problem is that we’ve put all these young people with so much trauma in one room, where all the frustration they carry is taken out on each other.”
Electronic ankle bracelets have become a common option for monitoring undocumented immigrants and ensuring they pay the cost of their release, even when they could be granted refugee status. This young Salvadoran man and his brother fled persecution by the Mara Salvatrucha. They were forced to pay $12,000 per person if they wanted to be released after entering the U.S. illegally. The company Libre by Nexus advanced the bail in exchange for an additional $2,400 each in interest. To guarantee its investment, it placed a GPS detector on the young men’s ankles to alert authorities if they are broken or disconnected. The company also forces them to pay $420 a month to rent the device and, if it breaks, an additional $3,800.
The two brothers, 20 and 21, had lived their entire lives in La Unión, El Salvador, working as campesinos on others’ land for $36 a week. Then, the Mara Salvatrucha asked them to plant marijuana where they worked. They refused, citing their beliefs as Evangelical Christians. For their refusal, they were beaten and threatened with firearms. The brothers reported the incident to local police, who handed them over to the gang members. Two officers and four members of MS-13 fired their weapons near their heads and beat them so badly that they were both sent to the hospital. After that, they borrowed $7,000 each from a sister living in Long Island and began their journey to the United States.
On Tuesday, Sep. 13, 2016, as night fell in Brentwood, a group of young people murdered two girls with bats outside Loretta Park School, where they studied. The victims were Kayla Cuevas, a 16-year-old girl of Dominican descent, and Nisa Mickens, a 15-year-old girl who was one of her best friends. Their bodies were left a few meters apart in a residential area outside the school. The murder was attributed to young members of MS-13. It was one of the cases that sparked public outrage, prompting an aggressive response from Trump: “They come from Central America. They are the toughest people you will ever meet. They’re killing and raping everyone there. They’re illegal, and they’re going to be stopped.” Months later, flowers on the ground mark the spot where Keyla Cuevas’ body was left lying.
This photo essay was produced with support from the DevReporter grant organized by LaFede.cat, in collaboration with the Asamblea de Cooperación por la Paz. Read the accompanying chronicle: When the Mara Salvatrucha Defeated Trump on Long Island.
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