WASHINGTON -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Federal agents have arrested more than 1,300 suspected gang members , including 343 with violent criminal histories , in the past three months , the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said Tuesday . Gang weapons and paraphernalia are displayed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2006 . `` Violent foreign-born gang members and their associates have more than worn out their welcome , and to them I have one message : good riddance , '' Julie L. Myers , assistant secretary of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement , said in a news release . Of those arrested , 374 face criminal charges , officials said . The rest face deportation , they said . During the nationwide crackdown , immigration and customs agents worked with law enforcement counterparts in 23 cities in what officials described as a `` summer surge . '' The most arrests were made in the New York area -LRB- 205 -RRB- and Miami , Florida -LRB- 160 -RRB- , but gang members were arrested in cities as small as Boise , Idaho , and Fort Smith , Arkansas . Watch agents in action in suspected gang roundup '' Myers told a Washington news conference that some of `` the worst of the worst '' gang offenders had been taken off U.S. streets . One of the gangs targeted has been MS-13 , which is believed to be the fastest growing group in the United States as well as one of the most violent , the agency said . The FBI estimates MS-13 has about 10,000 members in the country , along with tens of thousands in Guatemala , Mexico , Panama , Nicaragua , Honduras and El Salvador , where the gang originated in the late 1980s . `` MS-13 still seems to be the primary gang and the most violent gang still out there , and it is penetrating throughout the United States , '' said Marcy Forman , director of investigations for the agency . Don Hunter , sheriff of Collier County in southwest Florida , said MS-13 was present in what he called the `` upscale '' community . `` We are not unique , we have transnational gangs , we have homegrown gangs , '' Hunter told the news conference . But he said cooperation among federal and local agencies had made it possible to put a dent in gang operations . The sweep was part of the agency 's Operation Community Shield anti-gang initiative , which started in 2005 , and has resulted in arrests of more than 7,000 alleged members and their associates from more than 600 gangs , the agency said . E-mail to a friend CNN 's Kelli Arena and Kevin Bohn contributed to this report .