A year after the Department of Homeland Security promised to focus more on violent extremism, the plan to carry out that shift remains hidden while the atmosphere worsens.
WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security started an effort a year ago this month to address domestic terrorism, white nationalist threats and other acts of homegrown violence, a major shift for an agency created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to protect the country from foreign terrorism.
Today the plan to carry out that new mission remains stalled in a bureaucratic morass as clashes between protesters and counterprotesters have escalated to precisely the violent acts that the plan was supposed to address.
Instead, a new crop of Department of Homeland Security leaders, led by the confrontational acting secretary, Chad F. Wolf, appear to be doing the opposite of what had been promised. Far from cooperating with local governments and citizens to combat domestic unrest, particularly from the far right, they have joined President Trump in lashing out at American mayors and governors while deploying federal tactical teams to cities — often expressly against the wishes of the local governments with which they had pledged to cooperate. Continue reading.