By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
The Department of Homeland Security is beginning to combat white supremacy violence following the massacre in El Paso by a gunman motivated by his hatred of immigrants.
The department’s list of domestic terrorism threats now includes white supremacy, which has been on the rise since President Trump was elected.
The recent mass shootings “galvanized the Department of Homeland Security to expand its counterterrorism mission focus beyond terrorists operating aboard, to include those radicalized to violence within our borders by violent extremists of any ideology,” Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary of Homeland Security, said at a recent speech at the Brookings Institute.
“The continuing menace of racially based violent extremism, particularly white supremacist extremism, is an abhorrent affront to our nation, the struggle and unity of its diverse population, and the core values of both our society and our department,” McAleenan said during the speech.
DHS wrote up a 40-age document explaining its plan to collect data on white nationalist threats by working with local and state governments. The document also says DHS will combat propaganda on social media.
The El Paso massacre that killed 22 people at a Walmart “was an attack on all of us, on our family,” McAleenan told The Atlantic in an interview, noting that many Homeland Security employees are Hispanic.
