President Donald Trump is portraying the violent MS-13 gang as a collection of immigrants sneaking illegally into the U.S., an account that ignores the organization’s homegrown roots and the fact many of its members are U.S. citizens.

That may suit his attempt to link illegal immigration to criminal behavior, but it’s not an accurate depiction of a gang that blends foreigners and Americans and is therefore partly out of reach of border guards and other immigration authorities. Nor is he telling it straight when he says Democrats have demonstrated indifference to the problem: President Barack Obama took unprecedented actions against the gang.

In addition to his recent rhetoric on MS-13, Trump complained Wednesday that investors caused a slump in the stock market despite good economic news, unlike the “old days” when good news meant rising stocks. That’s a mischaracterization of how the market works.

A look at those statements:

TRUMP: “MS-13 recruits through our broken immigration system, violating our borders, and it just comes right through; whenever they want to come through, they come through. It’s much tougher now since we’ve been there. But we need much better border mechanisms and much better border security. We need the wall.” — Remarks Tuesday at a meeting with law enforcement officials.

THE FACTS: A wall might conceivably slow but can’t stop MS-13, because it is well established in the U.S. and has many U.S. citizens in its ranks — people who can’t be denied entry based on their nationality, or deported.

The gang started in the 1980s in Los Angeles, initially made up largely of refugees and other immigrants from El Salvador, and “spread quickly across the country,” according to a Justice Department fact sheet. An FBI assessment from January 2008 said the gang was operating in at least 42 states and the District of Columbia, roughly the same number of states estimated in 2017. It has also spread outside the U.S.

That FBI assessment said the group was made up largely of first-generation Americans and Salvadoran nationals. A decade later, the government has not said how many it thinks are citizens and immigrants. In notable raids on MS-13 in 2015 and 2016, most of the people caught were found to be U.S. citizens.

Despite the gang’s decades-old history in the U.S., Trump has routinely overstated the immigrant component, saying in May 2017 it’s a “large group of gangs that have been let into our country over a fairly short period of time” and blaming the Obama administration for having “allowed bad MS-13 gangs to form in cities across U.S.”

TRUMP: “The ones that don’t want security at the southern border, or any other border, are the Democrats. They don’t care about the security of our country. They don’t care about MS-13 killers pouring into our country. … Nobody was bringing them out before us.” — Speech Monday on Ohio.

THE FACTS: Recent history does not show such indifference. The U.S. carried out record deportations during the Obama administration and, on MS-13 specifically, took the unprecedented action of labeling the street gang a transnational criminal organization and announcing a freeze on its U.S. assets.

Trump’s own Justice Department has indirectly credited the Obama administration, in its early years, with putting heavy pressure on the gang. It said, “Through the combined efforts of federal, state and local law enforcement, great progress was made diminishing or severely (disrupting) the gang within certain targeted areas of the U.S. by 2009 and 2010.” That was not enough to crush MS-13 and Trump is taking extra steps toward that goal. But he is not the first to go after the gang.

The results so far are not clear. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said last month the U.S. has “worked with our international allies to arrest or charge more than 4,000 MS-13 members.” That suggests at least some of the 4,000 weren’t in the U.S. when they were arrested and aren’t now in U.S. prisons.

TRUMP: “In the `old days,’ when good news was reported, the Stock Market would go up. Today, when good news is reported, the Stock Market goes down. Big mistake, and we have so much good [great] news about the economy!” — Tweet Wednesday.

THE FACTS: It’s not that simple, and it’s not true that a positive economic indicator necessarily means a rise in stocks. The opposite can happen, depending on what sort of chain reaction is anticipated by investors.

The market dive was prompted in part by the news that wages are rising at the best pace in eight years after a prolonged bout of sluggish gains. Higher wages can lead to more inflation. The Fed could try to restrain inflation by raising interest rates, which would hurt corporate profits and limit the pace of economic growth. That’s how good news for workers can come with a downside for investors.

Likewise, bad news can make the market rise. In 2016, for example, the Labor Department initially reported that employers added a mere 38,000 jobs in May. After slipping that day, the Dow Jones industrial average climbed the next trading day. A weak jobs report can cause stocks to dip briefly, then surge the following days on the belief that the Fed will hold off on rate increases.

Associated Press writers Jill Colvin and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
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In Jim Crow America, it’s no wonder that Jack Johnson was the most despised African-American of his generation.

The first black boxing heavyweight champion of the world, Johnson humiliated white fighters and flaunted his affection for white women, even fleeing the country after an all-white jury convicted him of “immorality” for one of his relationships.

Now, more than 100 years later, Johnson’s great-great niece wants President Donald Trump to clear the champion’s name with a posthumous pardon. And she has the backing of Sen. John McCain, who has supported a Johnson pardon since 2004.

“Jack Johnson was a boxing legend and pioneer whose career and reputation were ruined by a racially charged conviction more than a century ago,” McCain said in a statement to The Associated Press. “Johnson’s imprisonment forced him into the shadows of bigotry and prejudice, and continues to stand as a stain on our national honor.”

Johnson, the son of former slaves, defeated Tommy Burns for the heavyweight title in 1908 at a time when blacks and whites rarely entered the same ring. He then mowed down a series of “great white hopes,” culminating in 1910 with the undefeated former champion, James J. Jeffries.

“He is one of the craftiest, cunningest boxers that ever stepped into the ring,” said the legendary boxer John L. Sullivan, in the aftermath of what was called “the fight of the century.”

But Johnson also refused to adhere to societal norms, living lavishly and brazenly and dating outside of his race in a time when whites often killed African-Americans without fear of legal repercussions. In 1913, he was convicted of violating the Mann Act, which made it illegal to transport women across state lines for “immoral” purposes.

After seven years as a fugitive, Johnson eventually returned to the U.S. and turned himself in. He served about a year in federal prison and was released in 1921. He died in 1946 in an auto accident.

Muhammad Ali often praised Johnson and would explain how he admired Johnson’s courage.

“They say I’m controversial and they say I’m bold, but I wasn’t nothing like Jack Johnson,” Ali once told broadcaster Howard Cosell. “They had lynchings and rapings and burnings and every time he’d fight they’d lynch Negroes and burn houses. This man was told if you beat this white man we’re going to shoot you from the audience. He said well just shoot my black so-and-so because I’m a knock him out.

“Here’s a Negro during the time you’d be lynched for looking at white ladies. He’d walk down the street and left the country with them. He was bold. … He had to be a courageous man.”

The stain on Johnson’s reputation forced some family members to live in shame of his legacy — the exact opposite of how Johnson led his life.

Family “didn’t talk about it because they were ashamed of him, that he went to prison,” Linda E. Haywood, 61, said of her great-great uncle. “They were led to believe that he did something wrong. They were so ashamed after being so proud of him. The white man came and told them that he did something wrong, he did something dirty and they painted him out to be something that he wasn’t.”

Haywood said she didn’t find out she was related to Johnson until she was 12. She remembers learning about Johnson when she was in sixth grade during Black History Month, and only learned later that he was kin.

Once, she recalled, she asked her mother about Johnson.

“She just grimaced,” Haywood said.

Haywood remembers her mother calling Johnson defiant and saying: “‘Momma, no disrespect, that man wasn’t defiant.’ He was just being a man. He was being himself.”

Haywood has pressed to have Johnson pardoned since President George W. Bush was in office, a decade ago. Posthumous pardons are rare, but not unprecedented. President Bill Clinton pardoned Henry O. Flipper, the first African-American officer to lead the Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry Regiment during the Civil War; he was framed for embezzlement.

Bush pardoned Charles Winters in 2008, an American volunteer in the Arab-Israeli War convicted of violating the U.S. Neutrality Acts in 1949.

Haywood wanted Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president, to pardon Johnson, but Justice Department policy says “processing posthumous pardon petitions is grounded in the belief that the time of the officials involved in the clemency process is better spent on the pardon and commutation requests of living persons.”

“In terms of Jack Johnson, I think the Department of Justice came back recommending — not recommending a pardon on that,” press secretary Robert Gibbs said in 2009.

A spokeswoman for Obama declined further comment.

Haywood wants the history books rewritten.

“Knowing that he was treated unfairly and unfairly convicted and targeted because of his choice of companions, who happened to be Caucasian, that’s wrong,” she said. “It bothered my people to the point they didn’t even want to talk about it. My mother didn’t even want to talk about it. That’s stupid… It bothers me.

“The last thing you want to do is die and have your name tarnished. That’s wrong. You don’t want it to be tarnished if you’re living.”

 
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U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has conducted a rare “filibuster,” speaking for more than eights hours in the Congress to try and force Republicans to bring up an immigration bill in the chamber. 

The California Democrat started talking shortly after 10 a.m. Wednesday, saying that Democrats would oppose any funding bill unless House Speaker Paul Ryan agrees to bring a bipartisan immigration bill to the House floor for a vote.

A filibuster is a prolonged speech that obstructs progress in a legislative assembly while not technically contravening the required procedures. This case is not a classic filibuster since it is not obstructing the passage of specific legislation.

“There’s nothing partisan or political about protecting dreamers. If a Dream Act were brought to the floor, it would pass immediately with strong bipartisan support,” Pelosi said early in her speech, noting that 84 percent of Americans support a path to citizenship for the so-called Dreamers, undocumented immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children. 

“And, I commend my Republican colleagues for their courage in speaking out on this, yet our Dreamers hang in limbo with a cruel cloud of fear and uncertainty above them. The Republican moral cowardice must end,” she continued, referring to Republican leadership’s reluctance to bring a bill to the floor.

The House historian’s office said in a statement that Pelosi’s speech was the longest continuous one it was “able to find on short notice.”  

The last known record belonged to then-Rep. Champ Clark in 1909 at five hours and 15 minutes, the statement read, but he was repeatedly interrupted, unlike Pelosi.

Pelosi is demanding that the Republican leadership in the House commits to allow a vote on legislation protecting young undocumented immigrants.

 
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An Indiana prosecutor is calling President Donald Trump’s tweet about the car crash that killed an Indianapolis Colts football star “ghoulish,” and says the suspect’s immigration status has no bearing on the case.

Prosecutors filed charges Wednesday against Manuel Orrego-Savala, a suspected illegal immigrant from Guatemala.

A pickup truck driven by Orrego-Savala hit Colts linebacker Edwin Jackson and his Uber driver Sunday as they stood beside their car on an Indianapolis highway.

Marion County prosecutor Terry Curry blasted the president for what he calls “ghoulish and inappropriate” comments, which he says politicize a tragedy.

Curry said his office will “vigorously” prosecute the case, regardless of the suspect’s immigration status.

Police believe Orrego-Savala was intoxicated when he crashed into the two men, who were parked by the side of the road.

According to a probable cause affidavit filed in Marion County superior court, Orrego-Savala’s blood-alcohol level was .239 percent, well above the legal limit of 0.08 percent allowed in Indiana.

Police arrested Orrego-Savala when he allegedly tried to flee the scene on foot. His defense attorney said he was “distraught” and “very confused.”

Orrego-Savala had been deported twice from the United States and was living illegally in the Indianapolis area doing construction work.
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