Whatever your take, it's an amazing piece. Long read. A BETRAYAL The teenager told police all about his gang, MS-13. In return, he was slated for deportation and marked for death. by Hannah DreierApril 2, 2018 EDITOR’S NOTE This story provides an intimate, revealing look into law enforcement’s war on MS-13, the Central American gang held out by President Donald Trump as a national public safety priority and embodiment of the consequences of illegal immigration. The subject of the story, an informant sold out by authorities, was in significant danger before publication — marked for death by a gang already suspicious that he helped the police. He decided to take on additional risk in telling the story, in hopes that someone would read it and help him. “This is basically my final option,” he told reporter Hannah Dreier. “I know not everyone wants to help a person trying to get away from the gang. When you don’t get help, the only way out of the gang is death.” We wrestled with how to balance his desire to tell his story with the threat to his life, and made some decisions after discussions with him and his attorney Bryan Johnson. To lend authority to his story, we are using his real first name, Henry, and real gang name, Triste. We withheld his last name and took his photo in a way that did not identify his face. We made clear to him and his attorney that the story would run on ProPublica and in New York magazine, and would be told in a video that would be circulated on social media. Henry wants his story out there. He agreed to meet with Dreier twice in ICE custody, and called her from his jail ward dozens of times in the weeks that followed, whispering into the receiver as other MS-13 members tried to eavesdrop. He let her copy his cellphone to comb through years of text and Facebook messenger conversations as well as the exchanges he had with his handler. And he helped her make a glossary of Spanish gang slang so that she could understand the coded text and voice messages he exchanged with other MS-13 members. “To put it simply, I feel betrayed,” he said. “This could help people understand what it’s like to try to get away from the gang. People think they know, but they can’t imagine what’s it’s really like to live this.”
