Mother of Long Island Gang Victim Invited to the State of the Union

NEW YORK — Evelyn Rodriguez, whose daughter Kayla Cuevas was killed by MS-13 gang members on Long Island in 2016, said she will be in the audience as a guest of the White House when President Donald Trump gives his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

She was also invited to the White House before the address to meet with the president.

The murders of Kayla, 16, and her friend, Nisa Mickens, 15, two American-born teenagers who were killed in a suburban cul-de-sac, became a flashpoint for the administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration. Rodriguez, 49, was honored to be invited, but said, for her, it was not about immigration.

“I want him to ensure that we’re going to get the proper funding for the resources for our kids,” she said in an interview Sunday from her Brentwood, Long Island, home before boarding a plane to Washington, D.C. “I’m not here for anybody’s political gain,” Rodriguez added. “I just want what’s right to be done. Everybody should put their political agenda aside and think about what’s going on in our country.”

Trump, and the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, in visits to the area last year, said the spate of MS-13 gang violence — 17 killings in Suffolk County in a 17-month span — was because of the recent increase in illegal immigration of young people from Central America. They vowed to destroy MS-13, the gang founded in Los Angeles by Salvadoran refugees in the late 1980s that now has 10,000 members across the country.

Trump has highlighted victims of crimes committed by unauthorized immigrants before, inviting them to be his guests at his first address to Congress last year. The White House did not immediately respond to an email about Rodriguez’s invitation to the State of the Union.

It has been nearly a year since federal authorities, in cooperation with the Suffolk County Police, said the two teenage girls were killed by members of MS-13. Last March, they arrested 13 adult members of MS-13, four of whom were charged in the deaths of Kayla and Nisa, who were students at Brentwood High School. Three of those four were immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

Kayla had been feuding with MS-13 members at school and on social media, prosecutors have said, and Nisa was with her on Sept. 13, 2016, when the gang members attacked as they were walking down a street at about 8:30 p.m. Both girls were bludgeoned to death with baseball bats and machetes.

Then, a month later, four Latino young men — three of whom were immigrants — were killed in the woods behind a soccer field in nearby Central Islip. The authorities said members of MS-13 were responsible.

That prompted Sessions to come to Central Islip two weeks later to declare war on the gang. Rodriguez met with Sessions, and told him that the problems began in the schools that were woefully underfunded and ill-equipped to deal with the thousands of young Central American immigrants who had fled to the area.

More than 4,000 school-age migrants came as unaccompanied minors to the Brentwood School District alone over the past several years, officials have said.

In October, the Department of Justice gave the Suffolk County Police Department a $500,000 grant to fight gang violence, and create programs for gang prevention.

Rodriguez hopes to get the same kind of commitment from the president at this meeting.

Rodriguez is a registered Democrat, raised in the South Bronx and Puerto Rico did before moving to Brentwood with her family. She has been a persistent advocate since her daughter died, working with relatives of the MS-13 victims, including immigrant families, and also supporting the Suffolk County Police Department’s aggressive efforts to arrest criminals. She sued the Brentwood School District for negligence in protecting her daughter; the suit is continuing.

When the president visited Suffolk County last July, Rodriguez was also invited to be in the audience. She was ready with her clipboard of ideas, which included asking Trump for federal money for gang prevention and social services. But she never got the chance.

Rodriguez has a nuanced position on immigration and illegal immigration, specifically. “Immigration is not my forte,” she said. “What I’ve been saying from day one: Everybody has the right for the American dream and that should be there for them. They’re good people, they give back to the community.”

What upsets her are the people who come here illegally and commit crimes, she said.

Rodriguez was named to the transition team for the district attorney of Suffolk County, Timothy D. Sini, a Democrat, who took office on Jan. 2. Sini had been the police commissioner. She has been working with Barbara Medina, a crime victims’ advocate, to arrange support groups for the families of the boys killed last April, two of whom were undocumented. The two women traveled together to Washington.

Sini said Sunday that he was pleased for Rodriguez. “Evelyn’s been a tremendous resource for the Suffolk County Police Department, the DA’s office, to me, personally, and she will undoubtedly use this opportunity fight for resources and raise awareness about issues that are important for law enforcement and victims,” he said.

Rodriguez admitted that she is quite nervous, but is going to honor her daughter’s legacy. “She’s opening more doors for me, where one door shuts, two doors open,” she said of Kayla. “Who would have thought that President Trump would speak with me?”

She added: “I’m a real person. I’m not out for any type of gain for myself, it’s always been for the kids.”