President Trump choice of the “animals” to describe MS-13 gang members elicited screams of outrage from those on the radical Left. But what is truly offensive is the soft-handed approach pro-sanctuary politicians like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo have taken to dealing with this transnational criminal organization.
Little more than a month after Cuomo unveiled plans to spend $18.5 million to combat MS-13 recruitment through after-school programs and job opportunities, he unveiled an additional $7.5 million in funds for new initiatives to combat MS-13 gang violence.
It is, Cuomo said, part of a “holistic approach to the task of combatting gangs on Long Island” and would send “a message loud and clear that gang activity has no place in our communities.”
Of that sum, $3 million will go towards “job training” and $250,000 will be used for “summer jobs to youth from low-income families.”
Finding alternative activities for gang members during the summer is hardly a way to stem the growth of this brutal Central American gang, particularly when Cuomo has promoted countless other programs which give sanctuary to illegal criminal aliens.
Maybe Cuomo forgot the press conference he convened last month in which he threatened Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with a lawsuit unless the agency immediately ended their “reckless and unconstitutional enforcement actions.”
Or the $10 million in additional funds for the Liberty Defense Fund, which defends illegal aliens or the action he took in prohibiting ICE agents from detaining individuals at state facilities without a warrant.
One of the groups receiving funds is the New York Immigration Coalition, which just published a report that asserts the Trump administration has “purposely exaggerated” the threat of MS-13 in order “to manipulate support for unfettered immigration enforcement.”
The group not only opposes the creation of a gang database and contends what is needed to battle these inhumane gangs is “more guidance and mental health resources for vulnerable youth and robust partnerships with community-based organizations that have cultural and linguistic competency and expertise in addressing root causes.”
Since his election, Cuomo has bent over backward to align himself with radical illegal alien rights groups, while attempting to tie the hands of the same ICE agents fighting to protect citizens of his state from gang violence. As of late March 2018, ICE agents have arrested 475 members of MS-13 and other transnational gangs in New York.
Rather than focus his energy on demonizing Trump, Cuomo should remember why the president invited the parents of Nisa Mickens and Kayla Cuevas to be his guests at the State of the Union.
They were the teenage friends who were bludgeoned and then hacked to death with machetes by MS-13 gang members on their way home from school. And when the defendants appeared at their pre-trial hearings, they “spoke and laughed among themselves, and smiled and waved to their supporters as they sat in the jury box,” according to Newsday.
Maybe Cuomo will propose a machete buy-back program next month.