New York Suburbs See Rise In Gang Activity

CENTRAL ISLIP, NY - NOVEMBER 3: Suffolk County Police officers from the anti-gang unit check competing graffiti of Mara Salvatrucha 13 or MS-13 and The Bloods in eastern Long Island's Suffolk County November 3, 2005 in Central Islip, New York. The graffiti appears in a residential area nearby a local high school. Many families fail to see that the area has a street gang problem. Mara Salvatrucha 13 started in the 1980's in Los Angeles, California during the 12-year civil war in El Salvador, when refugees fled north for safety and employment. Once Latino communities were infested with violent and gang related crime, Federal Immigration officials began deporting gang members back to their country of origin. In the last 12 years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has deported over 50,000 criminals and gang members to Central America. Deportation began to backfire and helped spread gang violence across Central America and back into other parts of the US Newly organized cells in El Salvador have returned to establish strongholds in metropolitan Washington, D.C., and other US cities. Authorities say prisons in El Salvador have become nerve centers, where deported leaders from Los Angeles communicate with gang cliques across the United States. (Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)