There are more than 200 members of the violent, El Salvadorian MS-13 gang in the Long Island, New York area, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The FBI’s Long Island Gang Task Force Director Geraldine Hart told NBC New York in an interview that members of MS-13 “bolster their ranking among other gangs by using violence.”

Hart told the media that the MS-13 gang problem, specifically as its members are usually illegal immigrants, is a national issue across the U.S.

“This is not a local problem,” Hart told NBC New York. “This is a national and international problem. We know that there are direct links from El Salvador up here into the New York area.”

The area of Brentwood, Long Island, more precisely, has undergone a transformation due to the MS-13 gang and its roots in illegal immigration.

As the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) notes, MS-13 flourished in Brentwood as placement of unaccompanied minor illegal immigrant children grew more than 100 percent from 2015 to 2016.

Brentwood has seen a booming El Salvadorian population in an area that was once primarily working class, Puerto Rican-Americans.

“By 2010, nearly 40 percent of the community was born in or had citizenship from a Central American country,” CIS Fellow Joseph Kolb writes. “This figure was nearly six times the national average. The majority 68 percent Hispanic population shifted now to 51 percent Central American and 18 percent Puerto Rican.”

Recent Long Island-area deaths by MS-13 include the brutal murders of Nisa Mickens and Kayla Cuevas, two teenage girls beaten and killed by illegal immigrant gang members, Breitbart Texas reported.

Other recent murder victims of MS-13 include teenagers Michael Lopez Banegas, Jefferson Villalobos, Jorge Tigre and Justin Llivicura, all of whom were beaten to death in Long Island’s Recreation Village Town Park, Breitbart Texas reported.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.