PRESIDENT Donald Trump has urged US congress in Long Island to dedicate more funding to the fight against illegal immigration and violent crime.

Trump spoke at Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood, New York, close to where the ultra-violent street gang MS-13 has committed a string of gruesome murders, including the massacre of four young men in April in Central Islip park.

The US leader continued his tough talk on immigration yesterday by urging congress to dedicate more funding to border enforcement and faster deportations in a speech in front of law enforcement officers and the family members of crime victims.

Trump has made cracking down on MS-13, also called Mara Salvatrucha, a top priority of his administration.

The gang, which is believed to have originated in immigrant communities in Los Angeles in the 1980s and then entrenched itself in Central America when its leaders were deported, is infamous for its violent tactics, including torturing victims and hacking them with machetes.

Its recruits are middle- and high-school students, predominantly in immigrant communities, who are said to risk violent retribution if they leave.

Authorities estimate the group has tens of thousands of members across several Central American countries and many US states.

Trump’s justice and homeland security departments have made targeting the gang a top priority.

Attorney general Jeff Sessions has directed his department’s law enforcement agencies and federal prosecutors across the country to prioritise their prosecution, as directed by an executive order Trump signed in February, among other measures.

Sessions has said he intends to stay in the job and fight for President Donald Trump’s agenda, despite being branded weak and ineffective in public by the president.

He said he and Trump have a “harmony of values and beliefs”.

The former Alabama senator said he serves at the pleasure of the president and will remain at the head of the justice department until Trump decides otherwise.

In Ohio this week, Trump told a rally: “We’re liberating our towns and we’re liberating our cities.

“Can you believe we have to do that?”

He added that law enforcement agents were rooting out gang members — and “not doing it in a politically correct fashion. We’re doing it rough”.

He added: “Our guys are rougher than their guys.”

Since the beginning of January the department of homeland security’s investigative unit has arrested 3311 gang members across the country in a number of targeted operations, said Tom Homan, the acting director of US immigration and customs enforcement.

Trump’s trip came as attorney general Jeff Sessions visited El Salvador as part of a mission to increase international co-operation against the gang.

Sessions met his Salvadoran counterpart and members of an international anti-gang task force.

Congressman Peter King, who represents Brentwood and will travel with the president from Washington, said Trump’s appearance would send a signal to communities that have been shaken by the violent killings.

“It’s absolutely devastating. And almost all of these killings have occurred in my district, within 20 minutes of my home,” he said.

King said the gang is responsible for 17 murders between January 2016 and April 2017 in his district — but that the impact on largely immigrant communities has been larger because of the way the gang kills.

In addition to torturing victims, King said members have also sent videos of gruesome crime scenes to their victims’ loved ones.

“This gang’s chilling motto is ‘mata, viola, controla,’which means ‘kill, rape and control’,” said Robert Hur, a top official at the justice department.

“They seek to live up to this motto through truly shocking acts of violence designed to instil fear: vicious machete attacks, execution-style gunshots, gang rape and human trafficking.”

The Trump administration blames the gang’s recent resurgence in certain areas on illegal immigration and believes policies like building a wall along the southern border and cracking down on so-called “sanctuary cities” will eradicate the problem.

Critics see the focus as misplaced and argue resources could be better spent on other enforcement efforts.