Violent transnational gangs 'recruiting unaccompanied minors at Border Security facilities

Members of some of the United States' most notorious street gangs have infiltrated shelters housing illegal immigrant minors from Central America and are recruiting them, say Homeland Security sources.

An estimated 57,000 minors from Central America have flooded across the border from Mexico to the U.S. in recent months, and gang leaders are reportedly filling their ranks from among them.

Transnational gangs such as the Mara Salvatruca, also known as MS-13, and the 18th Street gang are using established juvenile members from Central America to cross the border and recruit other children to the cartels, say sources ...

Shawn Moran, vice president of the National Border Control Patrol Council, a union which represents border agents, says agents have witnessed the recruiting process.

The Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement said earlier this week that they have no knowledge or evidence that gangs are recruiting immigrant minors.

'We know it’s happening because agents are telling us,' Moran told Fox News.

'The Border Patrol is trying to downplay it'...

CAIRCO Research

Catholic Online  - Many of the youthful recruits were involved in street gangs ...
According to The National Post, children as young as 11 years old, called "the expendables" are recruited to smuggle drugs ...
"The recruitment of children and adolescents can be explained, in part because children under 14 have constitutional immunity against being held criminally responsible for their actions, even for the crimes of murder, kidnapping and torture," according to Borderland Beat blog ...
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[LA Times/Pew Hispanic] There are still more 13- to 17-year-olds crossing, 84% of youths apprehended. Most are 16- and 17-year-olds, Lopez [Pew’s director of Hispanic research] said ... Far more boys are apprehended at the border ... 33,924 this year compared with 31,420 last year ...