Fact Checker. Trump's claim that 'thousands and thousands' of MS-13 members are off the streets

Fact Checker

President Trump’s claim that ‘thousands and thousands’ of MS-13 members are off the streets

By Salvador Rizzo February 8 at 3:00 AM

“We have sent thousands and thousands of MS-13 horrible people out of this country or into our prisons.”
— President Trump, State of the Union address, Jan. 30, 2018

“This is after, actually, removing thousands of them out — some into the prisons — but literally thousands of people are removed out.”
— Trump, discussing MS-13 during a roundtable at the White House, Feb. 6, 2018

-snip-

The Pinocchio Test

A range of data shows Trump’s crackdown on MS-13 has had a discernible impact. But there’s nothing showing that “thousands and thousands” of the gang’s members have been deported or imprisoned since the president took office.

At most, there were 1,241 deportees with gang ties who re-entered El Salvador in 2017, according to that country’s government. Meanwhile, according to a patchwork of reports from ICE and the Justice Department, several hundred MS-13 members were arrested or charged in the United States in 2017.

It’s important to keep in mind that in many cases, an arrest does not lead to a conviction. There is no database that tallies MS-13 prisoners at the state and local levels, where most crimes are prosecuted. At the federal level, the Justice Department reported 1,200 total convictions for gang members in 2017.

The facts do not support Trump’s repeated assertions that “thousands” of MS-13 members have been removed since he took office. Because the president has insisted with this claim, rejiggering it several times without making it accurate, we are upgrading it from Two to Three Pinocchios.

Three Pinocchios



Full article
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/02/08/president-trumps-claim-that-thousands-and-thousands-of-ms-13-members-are-off-the-streets/?undefined=&utm_term=.6595940e2d6b&wpisrc=nl_politics&wpmm=1