continues. marcela gaviria is a producer for "frontline" and her film premieres tonight, a look at cracking down on the ms-13 gang. host: what drew you to focus on this story and this place

specifically? guest: thank you for having me on your show. when president trump. elected i was assigned -- got elected i was assigned immigration. and i started looking at what happened on the border in 2014, very interested in trying to figure out what had happened at that particular moment in time and what happened to the unaccompanied minors that had crossed the border. i even shall he found out -- i found out that a lot of the kids actually ended up in long island come around 9000 -- island, around 9000 of them came. what happened was the perfect storm. you had a large influx of minors into a community that was not prepared to take them. and then you had ms-13, which was a gang that had been in long island since the 1990's.

and that was actually the same gang these children had been fleeing to begin with. that leads to a string of disappearances and murders, and honestly i thought it was perhaps the most perfect story at had ever come across. all of that coupled of course with the incoming president, with new views on how to do with immigrants in america and that became the focal point, ms-13. host: how much did you know about and how much did you focus on ms-13 before coming to this project? guest: i was born and raised in bogota, colombia, so i was familiar with it just by being a latin american. ms-13 is a so-called transnational criminal organization that has presidents in a lot of latin american countries, so i was familiar

with it. but i was surprised by the presence on long island. i think i sort of recalled gang presence in los angeles, but i was not familiar with it in long island. and: who are lisa mickens -- crevas. ? guest: their parents were at the state of the union just last week. lisa were two teenagers studying at brentwood, a local high school, and these two girls 2016, werer 13, savagely killed, really. they bumped into a group of ms-13, a small clique called the west side sailors and unfortunately they were pretty much hacked to death.

it was a very gruesome murder. we describe what happened in the film and we also describe the events that happened afterwards. it really was a sparking moment for long island, where law enforcement kicked in and really focused on trying to figure out who was behind in these murders and why there was such a string of disappearances. host: that was the gang crackdown, the documentary called "the gang crackdown" and it premieres tonight at 10:00 p.m. eastern on pbs. we are talking with marcela gaviria. an award-winning director and producer of "the gang crackdown" with us until 8:00 a.m. this morning. we invite callers to join as well. special line for educators, law enforcement officers, and for parents and all others.

we will put the numbers on the screen. you can start calling in on those lines. marcela gaviria, as folks are calling, why focus on the crackdown side as opposed to the rise of the gang and what led to the rise? yout: well, on "frontline" will be he is segment called u.s."ise of ms-13 in the but what we wanted to look at was what happened in the aftermath. there has been a crackdown on long island. the law enforcement officials went vigorously trying to figure out who were the killers. what happened after was the teachers, police officers, started focusing on the influx of the unaccompanied minors.

during the summer there was a round up, it was called operation matador. and around 400 individuals were apprehended. you should note that law enforcement officials believe that there are 200 ms-13 gang members, 200-400 gang members on long island and they apprehended 400 of them, a lot of them were unaccompanied minors. it turns out after having spent many months in detention, the was notuled there enough evidence to keep them detained and that the kids had not had due process. so we look at the basically, the events that transpired, why the kids were picked up, what kind of evidence ice had against them. ruled thatrts they were innocent kids put

through a run around. host: one of the events that transpired after one of the attacks was the attorney general's visit to long island to focus on the crackdown ms-13 on the -- on the ms-13 gang. here is a bit from the documentary. [video clip] >> outside there is a lot of protesting going on, and i spoke with protesters who said that this will just open the floodgates for racial profiling, for anti-immigrant sentiment, that has already been brewing in the county paid >> they are -- county. >> they are illegals. in other countries he would be shot on sight. >> we were protesting the fact that these killings were reflective of the entire community. because we said, you cannot use this to promote us versus them,

immigrants versus citizens, english-speaking versus spanish-speaking sense of justice. that does not serve our community. certainly, the current administration has done things that has made our job early -- job easier and harder. the rhetoric that is used in immigration context and anxiety is not helpful, because we want individuals to feel comfortable coming to the police. host: marcela gaviria is with us, a producer of "the gang crackdown." it will premiere tonight on pbs at 10:00 p.m. eastern. if you want to join the conversation this morning, special phone lines. if you are a member of law enforcement, 202-748-8000. educators, 202-748-8001. parents, 202-748-8002. 3.d all others, 202-748-800

chris in missouri, good morning. line for parents. caller: good morning. i would like to comment about the ms-13. with a multi-organization, several blacks, asians, several people within the organization, but my comment is to the mafia that helped during the war to get rid of russian and german -- within our country. now we got rid of the italian mafia and now we have the russian mafia, which does not care about the people of the united states. they are infiltrating our government. they are infiltrating our government through their russian knows thesed putin people and he is letting them run amok in our country. host: we will focus on "the gang

crackdown" and the incidents in new york we have been talking about with ms-13. marcela gaviria, your documentary, at the end of it you interviewed the soulful county district attorney and he said at the end that the current administration has done things that have made their job easier and harder. what was he referring to on both sides? guest: i think that law enforcement has a very tough job. if you look at what is happening in long island they have to deal with an incoming population that does not speak english, that mistrusts the police because a lot of them are undocumented, so they have to investigate all these things with a community that comes into this already distrustful of law enforcement because they fear they will be deported if they go to police. if the rhetoric from the

administration makes things percolate in a way that it really just makes them feel even more uncomfortable collaborating, and a lot of people i spoke to in long island say that this is what happened, law enforcement was having trouble figuring out what was going on because people were not coming forward, because they were afraid of police. so they are in a catch 22. host: we have a question from twitter, saying 9000 miners ended up on long island, where did they live, who sponsored them? minors, ift of these you think about the numbers, there has been around 250,000 inorss that have come -- m that have come into the u.s. since 2011. they are coming to be reunited with their parents who have already been living here for decades.

kids, one ofe two them came to be with his father. he came from honduras. and the other teenager came from el salvador to live with some relatives. and el salvador and honduras are the countries most prevalent among the kids coming to america. that is actually because there has been a spike in violence in those two countries, in what they call the northern triangle of central america. and that spike has pushed all these kids to the u.s. it is really interesting to note that these kids are actually fleeing gang violence and they show up on long island to have to deal with the same gains they were fleeing -- gangs they were fleeing in the first place. host: we have a parent. good morning. caller: good morning, what i want to say is if our government and our politicians, who we the

their salary, would listen to the people -- we do not want illegal immigrants here. no daca. they already have amnesty and it will just go on and on and on. and it is pathetic what is happening to the american people. they are being treated like third class citizens. host: marcela gaviria? iest: well, that is a view heard quite a bit in long island and i think that that is essentially part of the dilemma, that a lot of these kids are coming and taking up resources and it makes the community very anxious. that said, i think it is important to note that under international law these children are seeking asylum here.

and that is an international right. you can seek asylum in any country and it is up to the u.s. to determine whether that asylum is granted. most of these 9000 minors who have entered here, they are going to the immigration process. it is a very lengthy process. it takes many years. and sometimes the courts eventually decide whether they get to be sent home or not and some overstay. it is what happens. host: jim on long island. good morning. you are on. caller: hello? can you hear me? host: yep. caller: i caught a couple weeks ago about this stuff and he pushed the button on me. i live in central brentwood and i can tell you what a mess this is. theschools, they --

marquees are in spanish. we get these houses packed with people and they have landlords that rent out these rooms and put their cars all over the lawn. you cannot park in front of your house. they have these loud parties. they are so arrogant. host: the crackdown we have been talking about, do you think it is working? have you seen results? caller: i think it is all smoke and mirrors. i go to the town meetings, i go to the police meetings, they have meetings, and you know, oh yeah, we will do this and that. then you get one of these -- ,ook, the two people there now you and your guest seem like

reasonable human beings. you could not live here. i do not have the money to get out of here. i own a house here. would you want to live next door to a house where they are blasting the music until 2:00 a.m. so loud that you can hear it a half-mile away? you call the cops and they do not do anything. they are doing is allowing this to go on. and i am trying to put this into words. host: we got your story. we will let marcela gaviria comment. guest: a lot of the immigrants i ended up meeting, in fact that live in houses that are full of other immigrants, that is accurate, they work many shifts. and that is part of what law enforcement says is the problem, that these kids do not have enough supervision. what ends up happening is there

is so much pressure within the schools to join these gangs, these gangs form a social organization for these kids and that is the appeal. so a lot of that, a lot of the kids i spoke with say what needs to be done is a lot less law enforcement and a lot more social programs, afterschool programs, to keep these kids away from the gangs and give them another sense of community. host: we want to hear more about what law enforcement told you as you were making this film. first, here is the attorney general jeff sessions at the national sheriffs association meeting yesterday talking about the ongoing efforts to crack down on ms-13. [video clip] >> the assistant director of the criminal division testified that ms-13 gang members in el salvador have taken notice of what is happening. they know that hundreds of their

members are now behind bars, so now they are trying to send younger, more violent gang members to the united states to replenish. but that is not going to succeed either. we are going to continue to pound them. and i hope that as your people are out on the street, if you identify ms-13 members, this is the most violent gang, what is it? control is rape and their motto? they are by far the most violent gang, so let's show them that they cannot take over our streets. host: marcela gaviria, you were not able to talk with jeff sessions for the film, but you were able to talk with his deputy, rod rosenstein paired guest: yes, -- rod rosenstein. guest: yes, he was very forceful in saying that ms-13, is their

focus because if they do not clamp down on ms-13, ms-13 is directing gang members to come into the u.s. from el salvador and they have to find a way to stop this. and they will use any tools at their disposal. since the evidence against these kids is not that strong, they will use immigration tools in order to pick them up and send them back to el salvador and honduras. i should point out that there is a lot of evidence and there is a recent study that just came out yesterday, a 90 day report that says that the rhetoric like sessions just used, that we were listening to, is actually helping them, hoping ms-13 -- helping ms-13 become stronger, it emboldens them, makes them

larger than they actually are, that this is not a transnational gang organization, but pretty much a ragtag group of teenagers in latin america that are pretty hand to mouth. host: barbara in texas, good morning. caller: good morning. my thing is the children come up to the border, they are allowed through thep them united states and they do not know where they come from, who they are, but then they take egals, and instead of sending them back, even though they are kids, i do not care they need to be sent back, and instead we ship them through the united states and we put them into schools with our children, and then what? we expect them not to hurt our children? not to act the way that they are, to do the things they were sent here to do?