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NOTE The following text is a quote: August 11, 2010 ICE's Operation Community Shield goes global with new task force in Honduras Operation Double Impact from the videographer's view "We knew these operations were different from the states. There was a feeling of heightened awareness of our surroundings and increased tension in the air. Shootings and murders are taking place all over the city on a daily basis. When we were driving to a location downtown to look for gang members, we saw a body with a gunshot wound to the head lying on the sidewalk. " - Chuck Reed,...

SNIPPET: "SAN SALVADOR — Eleven people were killed and eight left wounded after suspected gang members set fire to a public bus on the outskirts of San Salvador, police officials said. Arsonists thought to be members of the Mara 18 gang set fire to the minibus, but "there are no clear motives" for the attack, Roberto Villalobos, a top commissioner with the national civil police, told AFP."

PROJECT: COUNTERINTELLIGENCESUBJECT: ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION / US LOCAL RESPONSEFILE: OPPOSITION RESEARCHTRANSLATION: SPANISH to ENGLISH (w/BABELFISH)Original Title: "Hispanics No Longer Feel Welcome in Virginia Due To Anti-Immigrant Measures" (Original Spanish: "Hispanos no se sienten bienvenidos en Virginia por medidas anti-inmigrantes") Text: "July 18, 2007 04:45pm ET by Reporter Isabel Conde "Washington, 18 July (EFE). - Because of the passage in the County of Loudoun (Virginia) of measures to prohibit to the undocumented immigrants to have access to county services, just like occured a week ago in the Prince William County also in Virginia, this causes the Hispanic community to not feel...

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (Reuters) - Central American governments could wipe out violent street gangs in two months by treating them like opponents in a war, El Salvador's police chief said on Tuesday. The tattooed street mobs, blamed for a rampage of murders, rapes and robberies and also operating in southern Mexico and in the United States, grew out of Hispanic youth gangs in Los Angeles and have around 100,000 members, police say. "If this were a war and war concepts were applied, the gangs here would be finished in two months," Salvadoran police chief Rodrigo Avila told a local...

All were identified as Salvadoran with criminal histories McALLEN - Five members of the violent Central American gang Mara Salvatrucha have been arrested in South Texas during the past four days, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Wednesday. All were identified as Salvadoran with criminal histories that included weapons violations, attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon. Border Patrol spokesman Roy Cervantes said one of the five was arrested just north of Corpus Christi when the officials stopped truck with he and 10 other illegal immigrants. His tattoos identified him as a member of the gang. The arrests occurred...

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) - Groups of presumed gang members launched two separate attacks against prison officials Saturday, killing four men and wounding a third. The assailants escaped. "We are in high alert," said Sandra Sayas, director-general of Guatemala's prison system. "I've called all of the prison chiefs to an urgent meeting." In the first attack, the assailants apparently used assault weapons to open fire on guards as they were leaving work at the end of their shift in the "Pavoncito" prison, 10 kilometers (six miles) southeast of the capital, Guatemala City, Sayas said. One of the guards died immediately, while...

Six people were stabbed early Sunday during a melee at a 1-year-old's birthday party, police said. It apparently started when a downstairs neighbor went upstairs to complain about the noise. They arrived at a two-family home on Crosby Street to find dozens of people running around in a thunderstorm. Some were screaming and bleeding. Most spoke only Spanish, adding to the chaos. A Spanish-speaking officer from Manchester was eventually brought into translate. Four carloads of men showed up to join the fight and police said some may have been affiliated with a gang. Police detained so many people that they...

A top prosecutor warns that members of the Central American gang are being hired by drug cartels to carry out their killings. Hoards of "Mara" street gang members who fled to Mexico following crackdowns against them in Central America are now being hired as gunmen by Mexican drug cartels, whom they serve with unreasoning violence, a top prosecutor confirmed this week. The Carrillo Fuentes cartel in the city of Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, has been at the forefront of the movement to hire Mara members as low-level gunmen, said Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, the nation's...