White supremacist terrorism is on the rise in America, but the Department of Homeland Security might not be doing its best to stop it.
The department once had a group of intelligence analysts devoted to researching domestic terrorism and the white supremacist threats that fall under that designation. But that group has since been "disbanded," and it's causing "significant concern" among officials at DHS, The Daily Beast reports.
Up until President Trump took office, the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis had a branch "focused on the threat from homegrown violent extremists and domestic terrorists," The Daily Beast describes. The whole office then saw significant restructuring under Trump's I&A head David Glawe, who reportedly shut down the domestic terrorism branch and reassigned its analysts elsewhere. Since then, "we've noticed I&A has significantly reduced their production on homegrown violent extremism and domestic terrorism" and has issued far fewer reports, one DHS official said.
This development comes even after an American was charged with killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh Synagogue in October, and after an American man shot at a Republican congressional baseball practice in 2017, among other homegrown terrorism threats. Yet a senior DHS official disputed The Daily Beast's reporting, saying that after the restructuring, the department "actually believe[s] we are far more effective now." DHS also provided a full statement explaining I&A's role, which you can read at The Daily Beast.