Illegal Alien Gangs Taking Root In Our Schools

Authored by Pawel Styrna via the Federation for American Immigration Reform,

The harmful impact of mass illegal migration is felt in every state and at every level of society, from the national to the most local. Rather than attempting to solve or at least acknowledge the problem, pro-open-borders officials prefer to silence criticism. Parents in Northern Virginia’s Loudoun County saw a demonstration of this reality earlier in October. The county school board chose to shut down public discussion about an alleged illegal alien MS-13 gang member in the county’s school system.

For mass-illegal-migration apologists on the school board, the real problem is not that illegal immigration is bringing gangs and crime into our classrooms, but that Americans notice it and dare speak out against it.

On October 8, Loudoun County parents were raising concerns about the presence of an (unnamed) alleged illegal alien student who is also an alleged member of the brutal Central American gang, MS-13. According to ABC 7 News, the student “now attends Loudoun Valley High School despite being caught carrying a gun in May 2023 and making the threat to kill a Blue Ridge Middle School student.” Several parents spoke, with one asking “Where’s the protection and the safety for our children who are in school with other children who have [made] known threats, who have been arrested, and who are back in the school, and my daughter is terrified to go to school with him [?].”

In each case, Loudoun County School Board Chair Melinda Mansfield cut the concerned parents off, her only concern being that the Loudoun County residents might potentially reveal personal information about the alleged illegal alien gang member. Eventually, Mansfield closed the public comment portion of the meeting. (More recently, the parents responded by suing LCSB for violating their First Amendment rights.)

The problem of alien gang members in schools is by no means limited to one alleged gang member in one county. Back in September, in Harford and Baltimore Counties, Maryland, Fox 45 broke a story about an MS-13 gang member and murder suspect being allowed to enroll in not just one, but two public high schools, sparking outrage among parents who were kept in the dark about such a dangerous individual attending school along with their children. In fact, MS-13 has been a threatening presence throughout the Maryland and Virginia counties and suburbs surrounding the nation’s capital for the past decade due to mass illegal migration from MS-13’s countries of origin.

What is a more recent feature of Biden-Harris-era mass migration is the arrival of the no less brutal and violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua on American soil. Having taken over residential properties in Aurora, Colorado, and more recently a complex in San Antonio, Texas, they now appear interested in taking over schools. In early October, police in Texas arrested 32-year-old Jorgenys Robertson Cova for recruiting middle school children in the Houston area to join Tren de Aragua. The Venezuelan illegal alien had arrived in the U.S. two years ago and managed to rack up a record that included a series of thefts. Cova was scheduled to attend an asylum hearing on the day of his arrest. This routine abuse of humanitarian asylum and refugee law has been another major driver of illegal immigration, resulting in these associated pathologies.

The case of our public schools demonstrates the degree to which mass illegal migration and all its problems affects Americans at a personal, local, and direct – not just abstract or theoretical – level. In addition to much-needed school resources being diverted to the costly education of the children of illegal aliens, our schoolchildren also find themselves forced to attend school with migrant children carrying such potentially infectious and deadly illnesses as latent tuberculosis. And, if that were not enough, illegal alien gang members are either attending our schools or attempting to recruit new members in them. This situation poses a real physical threat to school staff and students and is not acceptable. Our children deserve better.