April 29 (UPI) -- U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions vowed Friday to "devastate" the MS-13 street gang, which has been blamed for a string of homicides in New York.
Sessions, in a speech on Long Island with local police commissioners and sheriffs, said a crackdown on illegal immigration will help combat the gang, which has ties to El Salvador. He said the threat is similar to those by the Colombian cartels and the mafia. Long Island officials said the gang is responsible for 15 deaths in Suffolk County since early 2016, the most violent spat of killings linked on Long Island to MS-13 since the early 1990s.