Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel said Thursday that a person who controlled MS-13 activities on the East Coast was operating in the United States “far too long.”
President Donald Trump announced the arrest of the unidentified high-ranking member of the El Salvadoran prison gang in a Thursday morning post on Truth Social. Daily Caller Senior Editor Amber Duke asked Patel and Bondi how long the MS-13 leader had been in the country.
“The bottom line is — for far too long,” Patel responded. “Because of operational security we won’t get into details about this individual. If you’re here for a minute, a day, a month, or a year you’ve been here far too long and [Attorney] General Bondi has made it a priority at this FBI we manhunt every single person committing violent crime.”
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“It should speak volumes leader for entire East Coast was living right here in Virginia, right among us,” Bondi added.
During the press conference, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia praised Trump for issuing an executive order that designated MS-13, the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua and Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. MS-13 members have been implicated in brutal murders across the country.
Bondi said that the MS-13 member arrested Thursday morning will not be the only one targeted for removal.
“Many have been identified. They have been living here, many have been identified living here, they were let freely into our country, all of these illegal aliens. I had gone to that border in September, nothing humane was happening at that border,” Bondi said when asked about the high number of arrests. “Passports stacked everywhere, everywhere from every country you can imagine. People freely walking across our borders, fighting-age men coming into our country and this is the result of [former President] Joe Biden’s open border policy, what our country has been plagued with.”
The Border Patrol encountered millions of illegal immigrants during the Biden administration, according to figures released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem estimated in February that “hundreds of thousands of criminals” were allowed into the United States during the Biden administration.
“From the second Donald Trump took office he said he is going to make America safe, he shut down our borders and now it’s our job to get these people out of our country as fast as we can and this coordinated group effort, this task force that has been put together is making a difference here and will make a difference around the country,” Bondi added. “That is why you are seeing so many arrests so fast, because we will not have another Laken Riley. We are going to catch them, we are going to apprehend them and they are not going to like where they are going.”
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