Federal agencies promised to tackle extremism. Years later, experts see efforts sputtering out
Two months ago, 65 Democratic members of Congress signed a stern letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, requesting an update on how he is progressing with stamping out extremism from the 22 federal bodies that make up the Department of Homeland Security.
The senators and representatives expressed concern that extremism has seeped into vital security agencies, notably Customs and Border Protection. They cited a recent internal DHS report questioning the department’s ability to identify extremists working inside its own walls, and they noted recent reports of Border Patrol agents allegedly cooperating with vigilante and militia groups.
The letter demanded answers to more than 20 questions. They gave Mayorkas a deadline of July 31 to respond. Six weeks after that deadline, the members of Congress still haven’t received a response from DHS, USA TODAY can confirm.
A DHS spokesperson declined to discuss the lack of response, or answer any questions about the department’s approach to stamping out extremism.
That silence mirrors the stance of DHS’s larger, older federal sibling: the Department of Defense.
Just like DHS, the military of 2021 pledged to get serious about tackling extremism shortly after the Jan. 6 insurrection. Just like DHS, the military of 2023 won’t answer most questions about what steps it has actually taken.
The fact the Homeland Security secretary serving a Democratic president won’t even respond to Democrats in Congress marks a new low for an anti-extremism effort that began in earnest in the federal government in the weeks post-Jan. 6, experts on extremism said. Increasingly, that effort appears to be fizzling out without any significant changes being made.
“The idea that a government agency can just ignore an order from our elected representatives is alarming,” said Kathleen Belew, a Northwestern University historian and author of “Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America,” “More concerning to me is that we had this moment after Jan. 6, of a potential for a real understanding of something that has been hurting people and attacking our country for decades – and in the absence of real engagement with that problem, I am concerned that extremism will win.”
A stern letter from Congress
Last July, Mayorkas said domestic violent extremism “poses the most lethal and persistent terrorism-related threat to our country today.”
In the year since, domestic extremists have committed numerous acts of violence across the country, killing innocent people in gas stations, nightclubs and dollar stores.
The Department of Homeland Security, which Mayorkas heads, plays a role in defending the nation from violent domestic extremists through agencies such as the Office of Intelligence and Analysis and the Office of Homeland Security Situational Awareness. But as the letter to Mayorkas highlighted, some DHS agencies also have their own, troubling, connections to homegrown extremists.
The letter cites a December 2022 investigation by the Project on Government Oversight and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, which found that more than 300 members of the far-right extremist group the Oath Keepers claimed either to be working for, or to have worked for, DHS.
Led by founder Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers were at the center of some of the most dangerous plans for the Capitol insurrection. Rhodes and another member of the Oath Keepers were found guilty of seditious conspiracy last November and Rhodes was handed the longest sentence given to anyone at the riot. Three other Oath Keepers were also found guilty of felonies related to Jan. 6.
The letter also notes “serious concerns about the rise of paramilitary vigilante groups patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border and unlawfully intimidating, harassing, and detaining immigrants, sometimes in collaboration with, or with approval from federal agents.” Recent years have seen several examples of such action, including self-styled militia groups that have been prosecuted for illegally detaining migrants who attempted to cross the border.
And the letter noted that in March 2022, DHS’s Chief Security Officer issued a report concluding: “the Department has significant gaps that have impeded its ability to comprehensively prevent, detect, and respond to potential threats related to domestic violent extremism within DHS.” That same report made 15 recommendations for DHS to tackle extremism within its ranks.
The members of Congress asked for a progress report on those recommendations.
So far, crickets.
A spokesperson for Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., one of the principal authors of the July letter, confirmed that there has been no response to the letter.
“We absolutely cannot allow for dangerous, violent extremists to join the ranks of the Department of Homeland Security. The American people deserve accountability in government hiring so federal law enforcement isn’t corrupted by bigotry, extremism, and hate,” Markey said in a statement.
A spokesperson for DHS refused to answer any questions about the department’s extremism efforts and would not say whether Mayorkas plans to send a response to his colleagues in Congress. Instead, they sent the same statement DHS released two months ago when the letter first went out:
“DHS responds to congressional correspondence directly via official channels, and the Department will continue to respond appropriately to Congressional oversight."
The letter to Mayorkas lays out five different areas of concern that Congress members want answers on:
Whether DHS yet has a working definition for what actually constitutes “domestic violent extremism.” The letter notes that, as of March 2022, the agency had no set definition for this.
The status of a directive, launched in April, to “prevent, detect, and respond to violent extremist activity within the DHS workforce.”
DHS policy on extremist groups and how it ensures its employees don’t collaborate with them.
How DHS addresses accusations of racial bias by employees.
What steps DHS has taken against a group of CBP agents who were involved with a Facebook group called “I’m 10-15” that reportedly threatened harm against migrants and government officials.
Missing a chance to tackle extremism?
The weeks after the Jan. 6 insurrection saw a rush of movement from the federal government to both acknowledge the seriousness of domestic violent extremism, and also to pledge to do something about it.
The incoming administration of President Joe Biden promised to refocus federal law enforcement agencies to address the growing threat from domestic extremists. And the two biggest national security bodies – the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security – acknowledged for the first time that they, themselves, had a problem with extremists in the ranks.
There followed a period of rigorous study and self-analysis. Both DHS and the military launched internal commissions to evaluate the extent of each agency’s extremism problem and to plot a path forwards.
As USA TODAY reported in July, the military’s effort appears to have largely fallen by the wayside. Most steps in the process are stalled or inactive, and the reforms experts said were most important haven’t happened. Last week, a coalition of 35 human rights groups called on the military to release more information about its anti-extremism efforts and noted USA TODAY’s finding that an internal report into extremism in the military still hasn’t been made public more than a year after being completed.
With the lack of response from Mayorkas to the Congressional letter, experts now worry that DHS’s promised reforms have similarly petered out.
“It’s an embarrassing subject for them,” said Daryl Johnson, a security consultant and former senior analyst for domestic terrorism at DHS. “We’ve missed our chance to deal with this over and over again since 2009, so we continue to wrestle with this problem, even as it’s become more prevalent and more violent.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: DHS promised to combat extremism. Now it won't address the issue
