Brazil rejects US request to designate two gangs as terrorist organizations

The Brazilian government has rejected a request by the US state department to designate two major criminal gangs as terrorist organizations, according to Mario Sarrubo, Brazil’s national secretary of public security. Sarrubo said the request was made on Tuesday during a meeting between US and Brazilian officials in Brasília. Trump has been trying to tie his aggressive crackdown on immigration to the presence of members of Latin American criminal gangs in US cities. Earlier this year, the US government designated several crime factions as terrorist organizations, including Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua and El Salvador’s MS-13, as well as Mexican cartels and Haitian gangs. “We don’t have terrorist organizations here, we have criminal organizations that have infiltrated society,” said Sarrubo.