Immigration loophole allows MS-13 gang members to go free

If the Trump administration had its way, Ramon Arevalo Lopez and Oscar Canales Molina would have been either in detention or deported. Instead, they were out on the streets — thanks to judges’ orders — where, according to police, they and another illegal immigrant delivered an MS-13 gang beat-down to two high school students in New York. All three of the illegal immigrants entered the U.S. in 2016 as unaccompanied alien children, meaning they crossed the border without parents — a status that earned them a quick release into the country, where they were quickly reunited with their family and began to live while awaiting deportations that never came. For Homeland Security Department officials, it’s the latest sign of a legal system that stymies their efforts to oust dangerous figures. “One of the loopholes we are imploring Congress to close could have prevented this gruesome attack,” said Katie Waldman, a Homeland Security spokeswoman. Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act and a Clinton-era court settlement, the Flores agreement, unaccompanied children traveling without parents are required to be processed by immigration authorities and quickly released to social workers, and from there to sponsors. Of the 31,754 unaccompanied minors apprehended from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in fiscal year 2017 — when Mr. Arevalo Lopez was caught — some 98 percent are still in the U.S...MORE