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Trump vows to eliminate MS-13 gang

 
President Donald Trump speaks Friday at Suffolk Community College in Brentwood, N.Y., close to where the violent street gang MS-13 has committed a number of murders.
President Donald Trump speaks Friday at Suffolk Community College in Brentwood, N.Y., close to where the violent street gang MS-13 has committed a number of murders.
Published July 29, 2017

MELVILLE, N.Y. — President Donald Trump came to the doorstep of Long Island communities hard-hit by gang violence Friday and vowed to help police eradicate the MS-13 gang.

Trump shook hands with some officers as he took the stage at Suffolk Community College in Brentwood. He was greeted with chants of "USA! USA!"

"I am the big, big admirer, and believer, in law enforcement, from day one," he said. "We are going to destroy the vile criminal cartel, MS-13, and many other criminal gangs."

Addressing gang members, Trump vowed: "We will find you, we will jail you and we will deport you."

"These are animals," he said of the MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, saying they liked their victims to "die slowly."

Trump told police officers in attendance, "We have your backs 100 percent, not like in the old days."

Police cheered the remark.

"It's a whole new world," he said. "We have started nipping it in the bud."

Trump, who grew up in Queens, said he was surprised by the gang violence on Long Island.

"I grew up on Long Island," he said. "I didn't know about this. … I never thought I'd be up here talking about liberating the towns of Long Island, where I grew up."

Trump blamed former President Barack Obama's immigration policies for allowing a surge of criminals into the country.

Talking tough on illegal immigration and violent crime, Trump appeared Friday to advocate rougher treatment of people in police custody.

"Don't be too nice," said Trump.

The president urged Congress to find money to pay for 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers "so that we can eliminate MS-13."

Trump said the administration is removing these gang members from the United States "but we'd like to get them out a lot faster and when you see … these thugs being thrown into the back of the paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in, rough, I said, 'Please don't be too nice.' "

Trump then spoke dismissively of the practice by which arresting officers shield the heads of handcuffed suspects as they are placed in police cars.

"I said, 'You could take the hand away, okay,' " he said. The audience included federal and law enforcement personnel from the New York-New Jersey area, some of whom applauded Trump's remarks.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.