“The bad guy is in jail,” Attorney General Pam Bondi declared after a multi-agency raid on the home of the East Coast MS-13 gang leader early Thursday morning. Another promises-made-promises-kept moment by the Trump administration.
The bad guy, whose identity has not been released, is, like 341 other suspected illegal alien gangsters captured in Northern Virginia in the past month, “not going to like where [he is] going.”
The MS-13 East Coast leader was living in the declared sanctuary of Prince William County, just a few miles away from the White House.
.@AGPamBondi: "Early this morning, one of the top leaders of MS-13 was apprehended. He was the leader for the East Coast, one of the top three in the entire country, right here in Virginia ... He is an illegal alien from El Salvador — and he will NOT be living in our country much… pic.twitter.com/cW8QJNe48L
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 27, 2025
“This guy was living in a neighborhood right around you. No longer... America is safer today because one of the top domestic terrorists of MS 13 is off the streets,” Bondi said. “They [MS-13] are organized, they are violent, they are committing homicides throughout our country. We are going to fight until they are completely dismantled,” she said.
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Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel were at the raid Thursday morning at 4:30 when agents from DHS, FBI, ATF, and other agencies worked in tandem with local cops and raided the home.
BREAKING: I’m proud to announce that early this morning our brave law enforcement officers conducted a successful operation that captured a top MS-13 national leader
— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) March 27, 2025
DOJ will not rest until we make America safe again. pic.twitter.com/yKmhas068b
It seems reasonable to ask what kind of national security issue MS-13 poses since this festering sore has been growing in the area for years.
That astonishing number of arrests in Northern Virginia was achieved by working with Gov. Glenn Youngkin and local authorities equipped with federal 287(g) status, which allows them to work with federal authorities. Youngkin castigated the sanctuary cities and counties that kept the 342 bad guys safe to operate while giving no sanctuary to people who don't murder, rape, hack with machetes, and broker drugs.
Local jurisdictions that claim sanctuary status are absolutely unacceptable. Look who’s in your community. Look who’s living around the corner from citizens just going to work trying to build their lives in the best place in America to live and work and raise a family. And yet we have one of the top three operatives from one of the most dangerous gangs in America and around the world living around the corner and you sanctuary cities want to give refuge to them.
It’s time for us to recognize that Virginia is not a sanctuary state. We are working to get the bad guys out of here.
Youngkin said the raid Thursday morning, as well as the other 341 arrests, were only possible because of President Trump’s Executive Order declaring MS-13 as well as Tren De Aragua as terrorist organizations.
The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern Section of Virginia, Eric Siebert, said the operation to capture as many as 575 bad guys began on March 3. Almost all of them were illegally in the United States.
In less than a month we have identified 575 targets we have arrested 342 of those; many of them with illegal status, And of the 342 arrested, we’ve identified 81 individuals with gang or transnational crime affiliation. Seventy three criminal complaints have been filed.
Bondi has offered the multiagency task force model “to every governor in the country, and we’ll see who chooses to keep their state safe.”
MS-13 has been a problem in the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia areas for years. They are notorious, dangerous, and the bodies have been piling up for years. But Bondi said the Biden administration was complicit in letting more of these monsters into the country.
They let them freely come into our country. People freely coming across our borders; fighting age men. This is the result of Joe Biden’s open border policy. Trump said he wanted to make our country safe again. He shut down our borders. And now it is our job to get these people out of our country as fast as we can.
Seventy-three indictments have been handed up this month, so they're under federal prosecution.
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Whether they could end up in that El Salvador prison where DHS Secretary Kristi Noem recorded a completely wild public service announcement in front of prisoners isn't known.
I toured the CECOT, El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center.
— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) March 26, 2025
President Trump and I have a clear message to criminal illegal aliens: LEAVE NOW.
If you do not leave, we will hunt you down, arrest you, and you could end up in this El Salvadorian prison. pic.twitter.com/OItDqNsFxM
But, Bondi said, "We are going to catch them. We are going to apprehend them. And they will not like where they are going."
Good.
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