BROWNSVILLE, Texas – A member of the dangerous Salvadoran gang MS18 who had entered the country illegally will spend 30 months in prison before getting sent back to El Salvador.
On Friday morning U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen sentenced 43-year-old Jimmy Stanley Brizuela to two and a half years in prison before facing deportation proceedings for the charge of illegal re-entry, court records obtained by Breitbart Texas show.
After two days of trial on May 13, 2014 a jury found Brizuela guilty of having entered the country illegally almost a year prior on May 14, 2013 in Brownsville. Federal prosecutors alleged that Brizuela had been deported three weeks prior and that when he tried to cross the river in May 2013 the group he was with was carrying bicycles in order to elude U.S. Border Patrol agents, a prepared statement from the U.S Attorney’s Office shows.
During the trial Brizuela confessed to being a member of the Mara Salvatrucha -MS-18 gang and prosecutors presented evidence that he had previously been convicted of various felonies.
Brizuela’s government provided attorney claimed in court filings that his client had entered the country with the intent to turn himself in to U.S. Border Patrol agents and request asylum fearing for his life in El Salvador; however he was instead charged with illegal re-entry.
Brizuela is one of a number of members of the feared Salvadoran gang that have been apprehended by authorities in South Texas. The Mara Salvatrucha 18 is gang tied to drug trafficking, murder for hire and several other criminal enterprises that began in the 1980’s in California by Salvadoran immigrants and over time spread to various countries in Central America. The gang has been in a bloody struggle with the MS-13, a gang of similar origins but the two have since been fierce rivals.
Recently in late July, Rio Grande City Police detained a member of the MS-13 gang who had been hiding in a house while responding to a noise disturbance. The Salvadoran gangs, which are primarily made up of illegal aliens have been singled out by U.S. law enforcement because of their propensity for gruesome acts of violence.
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