Exclusive | ice busts salvadoran gangbanger from violent 18th street gang after wild car chase

WASHINGTON — Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested a Salvadoran gangbanger who is wanted for crimes in his home country after a wild car chase in Virginia earlier this month —

which ended when the illegal migrant smashed into another vehicle and wrecked his car, The Post can reveal. Javier Enrique Canas-Escobar, 31, was apprehended in Bealeton, Va., more than 50

miles from the nation’s capital following the multi-car crash on May 22 — and is a member of the “notorious transnational” 18th Street gang already charged with illegal firearms possession

in El Salvador, an ICE official said. “Caquillo,” as he’s known in the gang, veered to the opposite side of the double-yellow and collided into another driver, totaling his car, before ICE

and Virginia State Police nabbed him. State authorities have since charged him with two felony counts of assaulting law enforcement officers, eluding, felony and misdemeanor hit and runs,

driving on the wrong side of the highway, property destruction and failure to obey a stop sign. ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) DC field office director Russell Hott said he

posed “a significant threat to the residents of our Virginia communities” and “has a slew of charges to answer to before being removed to El Salvador to face firearms charges there.” EXPLORE

MORE Canas-Escobar illegally entered the US “on an unknown date, at an unknown location and without being inspected, admitted or paroled,” according to the Department of Homeland Security.

ICE has since lodged an immigration detainer request with the Fauquier County Sheriff’s Office in Warrenton. No one was injured in the car chase, but he was briefly treated at a local

hospital. Salvadoran authorities had first demanded his extradition on May 16. President Trump’s border czar Tom Homan told reporters last month that roughly 139,000 illegal immigrants were

deported in the administration’s first 100 days — but as many as 700,000 with criminal charges are still inside the US. But high-profile deportations in March to a mega-prison in El Salvador

of hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members — including purported MS-13er Kilmar Abrego Garcia — have prompted protracted legal challenges to Trump’s mass deportations plan. The White

House in the past week has tasked ICE with stepping up its quota of deportations — from 1,800 to 3,000 arrests per day — as the Trump admin seeks to rapidly deport more. ICE recently

underwent a “leadership realignment” that resulted in at least one official’s retirement and the elevation of other career staffers to support that effort.