Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector arrested several Salvadoran nationals who illegally crossed the border from Mexico. They were identified as members of the hyperviolent transnational criminal gang known as Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13).

Rio Grande Valley Sector agents arrested nine from El Salvador between Friday and Wednesday. During processing, the nine Salvadorans were identified as members of MS-13, according to Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol officials.

Agents said one of the Salvadoran nationals was a female member traveling with her eight-year-old child.

The Rio Grande Valley Sector is seeing numerous arrests of MS-13 members this fiscal year, officials reported.

Agents assigned to the McAllen Station arrested two members in separate incidents on Friday, Breitbart Texas reported. Both men have prior orders of removal from an immigration judge, according to Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol officials.

On Friday evening, agents arrested a group of four who illegally crossed the border near the town of La Grulla, Texas. One of the men was a previously deported Salvadoran who is affiliated with MS-13. The man also has an extensive criminal history, officials stated. The Nassau County, Florida, Police Department arrested the criminal alien for intimidating a witness, resisting arrest, assault with intent to cause physical injury with a weapon, and disorderly conduct. He is currently wanted by Florida law enforcement for probation violations for the crimes described above.

A few weeks earlier, Rio Grande Valley Sector agents arrested two more members who illegally re-entered the U.S. Agents assigned to the Falfurrias Border Patrol Station in Brooks County apprehended a member with a prior conviction in his home country. The man said he served time in a Salvadoran prison following a conviction on a charge of being an accessory to a double murder, according to Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol officials.

Two days later, Border Patrol agents assigned to the Rio Grande Valley Sector’s Special Operations Detachment arrested another Salvadoran national near the border town of Los Ebanos, Texas.