Earlier this week, the State Department announced that it is designating yet another gang, Barrio 18, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT). It joins other similar criminal organizations, like Tren de Aragua and MS-13. 

While Barrio 18, also known as the 18th Street Gang, doesn't make the headlines that those groups often do, the State Department called it "one of the largest gangs in our hemisphere." and says it has "conducted attacks against security personnel, public officials, and civilians in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras."  

El Salvador's president Nayib Bukele took to X to thank Donald Trump for the special mention the president gave his country during his UN speech on Tuesday. "I want to thank the country of El Salvador for the successful and professional job they've done in receiving and jailing so many criminals that entered our country," Trump said.  

Bukele also thanked him for designating Barrio 18 as a terrorist organization, calling it a group "whose crimes have inflicted so much harm on our societies." He added: 

In El Salvador, we had already taken this step by formally designating them as terrorists; even though some organizations have criticized us, most of their members are currently imprisoned at CECOT, the Confinement Center of Terrorism (by its initials in Spanish), specifically designed to confront this type of threat. Your message underscores the importance of working together with determination in the fight against terrorism, and we are pleased to see that our governments are fully aligned in this cause.  We are convinced that cooperation between our nations is key to eradicating these criminal structures and ensuring a future of peace and security for our peoples. May God bless El Salvador and may God bless the United States of America.

Barrio 18 dates back to the 1960s in Los Angeles. During the 1990s, illegal immigration crackdowns in the United States led to members going back to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, where they metastasized and took over neighborhoods, extorting money from small businesses, using public transportation as a weapon, and arbitrarily attacking civilians. 

Barrio 18 was the rival gang to MS-13, but eventually, it split itself into two factions, Sureños and Revolucionarios, which led to even more violence and warfare. In Guatemala, for example, bus drivers who drove through the gang's alleged territories were often robbed and murdered just for crossing arbitrary lines. Their murders made international headlines.    

This is why, at one time, El Salvador and Central America's entire Northern Triangle was dubbed the murder capital of the world. Enter Bukele. His crackdown on these gangs not only led to the country having one of the lowest murder rates in the world, but authorities estimate that over half of the members of Barrio 18 are now in jail, including the gang's most prominent leaders. 

While his crackdown on gangs in El Salvador is the reason Barrio 18 is not nearly as strong as it used to be, it's still out there in Central America, Mexico, the United States, and Canada.

In 2008, pre-Bukele, the Department of Justice estimated that Barrio 18 had 30,000 to 50,000 members, and it operated in 28 states and 50 cities in the United States. The DOJ estimated that at that time, 80% of its members in California alone were in the country illegally. It noted that the gang's main income source was "retail-level distribution" of drugs, mainly cocaine and marijuana, but also heroin and meth. The gang was also involved in several violent and criminal activities, including assault, auto theft, carjacking, drive-by shootings, extortion, homicide, identification fraud, and robbery. 

Over the years, members of Barrio 18 have committed numerous homicides in the U.S. Sometimes, the victims are members of MS-13, but not always. In 2001, Catarino Gonzalez was sentenced to life in prison for murdering a police officer. She was sitting in her patrol car when he walked up and shot her in the back of the head. In 2017, several members took a young man into the woods in Kingston, New York, and murdered him. 

With any luck, Trump and Bukele's continued efforts will get even more of these thugs off the streets. 

The left doesn't seem to like it when Trump and Bukele save the lives of innocent people by putting thugs and gang members in jail, but we'll never stop reporting on it. 

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