The Federal Government Is Gone: Under Trump, the Fight Against Extremist Violence Is Left Up to the States
by Hannah Allam ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as theyre published. Under the watchful gaze of security guards, dozens of people streamed through metal detectors to enter Temple Israel one evening this month for a town hall meeting on hate crimes and domestic terrorism.The cavernous synagogue outside of Detroit, one of several houses of worship along a suburban strip nicknamed God Row, was on high alert. Police cars formed a zigzag in the driveway. Only registered guests were admitted; no purses or backpacks were allowed. Attendees had been informed of the location just 48 hours in advance.The intense security brought to life the threat picture described onstage by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, the recipient of vicious backlash as a gay Jewish Democrat who has led high-profile prosecutions of far-right militants, including the kidnapping plot targeting the governor. Nessel spoke as a slideshow detailed her offices hate crimes unit, the first of its kind in the nation. She paused at a bullet point about working with federal and local law enforcement partners.The federal part, not so much anymore, sadly, she said, adding that the wording should now mention only state and county partners, with help from Washington TBD.The federal government used to prioritize domestic terrorism, and now its like domestic terrorism just went away overnight, Nessel told the audience. I dont think that were going to get much in the way of cooperation anymore. The federal government used to prioritize domestic terrorism, and now its like domestic terrorism just went away overnight, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said at the hate crimes and extremism town hall at Temple Israel. (Brittany Greeson for ProPublica) Across the country, other state-level security officials and violence prevention advocates have reached the same conclusion. In interviews with ProPublica, they described the federal government as retreating from the fight against extremist violence, which for years the FBI has deemed the most lethal and active domestic concern. States say they are now largely on their own to confront the kind of hate-fueled threats that had turned Temple Israel into a fortress.The White House is redirecting counterterrorism personnel and funds toward President Donald Trumps sweeping deportation campaign, saying the southern border is the greatest domestic security threat facing the country. Millions in budget cuts have gutted terrorism-related law enforcement training and shut down studies tracking the frequency of attacks. Trump and his deputies have signaled that the Justice Departments focus on violent extremism is over, starting with the presidents clemency order for militants charged in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.On the ground, security officials and extremism researchers say, federal coordination for preventing terrorism and targeted violence is gone, leading to a state-level scramble to preserve efforts no longer supported by Washington, including hate-crime reporting hotlines and help with identifying threatening behavior to thwart violence.This year, ProPublica has detailed how federal anti-extremism funding has helped local communities avert tragedy. In Texas, a rabbi credited training for his actions ending a hostage-taking standoff. In Massachusetts, specialists work with hospitals to identify young patients exhibiting disturbing behavior. In California, training helped thwart a potential school shooting.Absent federal direction, the fight against violent extremism falls to a hodgepodge of state efforts, some of them robust and others fledgling. The result is a patchwork approach that counterterrorism experts say leaves many areas uncovered. Even in blue states where more political will exists, funding and programs are increasingly scarce.We are now going to ask every local community to try to stand up its own effort without any type of guidance, said Sharon Gilmartin, executive director of Safe States Alliance, an anti-violence advocacy group that works with state health departments.Federal agencies have pushed back on the idea of a retreat from violent extremism, noting swift responses in recent domestic terrorism investigations such as an arson attack on Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro in April and a car bombing this month outside a fertility clinic in California. FBI officials say theyre also investigating an attack that killed two Israeli Embassy staff members outside a Jewish museum in Washington in a likely act of targeted violence.Federal officials say training and intelligence-sharing systems are in place to help state and local law enforcement to identify and respond to hate-motivated threats, such as those targeting minority communities.The Justice Department is focused on prosecuting criminals, getting illegal drugs off the streets, and protecting all Americans from violent crime, said a spokesperson. Discretionary funds that are not aligned with the administrations priorities are subject to review and reallocation. The DOJ is open to appeals, the spokesperson said, and to restoring funding as appropriate.In an email response to questions about specific cuts to counterterrorism work, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said Trump is keeping promises to safeguard the nation, whether it be maximizing the use of Federal resources to improve training or establishing task forces to advance Federal and local coordination.Michigan, long a hotbed of anti-government militia activity, was an early adopter of strategies to fight domestic extremism, making it a target of conservative pundits who accuse the state of criminalizing right-wing organizing. An anti-Muslim group is challenging the constitutionality of Nessels hate crimes unit in a federal suit that has dragged on for years.In late December, after a protracted political battle, Michigan adopted a new hate crime statute that expands an old law with additions such as protections for LGBTQ+ communities and people with disabilities. Right-wing figures lobbed threatening slurs at the author, state Rep. Noah Arbit, a gay Jewish Democrat who spoke alongside Nessel at Temple Israel, which is in his district and where he celebrated his bar mitzvah.Arbit acknowledged that his story of a hard-fought legislative triumph is dampened by the Trump administrations backsliding. In this political climate, Arbit told the audience, it is hard not to feel like were getting further and further away from progress against hate-fueled violence.The politicians were joined onstage by Cynthia Miller-Idriss, who leads the Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab at American University and is working with several states to update their strategies. She called Michigan a model.The federal government is gone on this issue, Miller-Idriss told the crowd. The future right now is in the states. Michigan state Rep. Noah Arbit, center, speaks alongside Nessel, left, and extremism scholar Cynthia Miller-Idriss during the town hall at Temple Israel. (Brittany Greeson for ProPublica) The Only Diner in TownSome 2,000 miles away in Washington state, this months meeting of the Domestic Extremism and Mass Violence Task Force featured a special guest: Bill Braniff, a recent casualty of the Trump administrations about-face on counterterrorism.Braniff spent the last two years leading the federal governments main office dedicated to preventing terrorism and targeted violence, a term encompassing hate-fueled attacks, school shootings and political violence. Housed in the Department of Homeland Security, the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships treated these acts as a pressing public health concern.Part of Braniffs job was overseeing a network of regional coordinators who helped state and local advocates connect with federal resources. Advocates credit federal efforts with averting attacks through funds that supported, for example, training that led a student to report a gun in a classmates backpack or programs that help families intervene before radicalization turns to violence.Another project helped states develop their own prevention strategies tailored to local sensibilities; some focus on education and training, others on beefing up enforcement and intelligence sharing. By early this year, eight states had adopted strategies, eight others were in the drafting stage and 26 more had expressed interest.Speaking via teleconference to the Seattle-based task force, Braniff said the office is now being dismantled. He resigned in March, when the Trump administration slashed 20% of his staff, froze much of the work and signaled deeper cuts were coming.The approach that we adopted and evangelized over the last two years has proven to be really effective at decreasing harm and violence, Braniff told the task force. Im personally committed to keeping it going in Washington state and in the rest of the nation.A Homeland Security spokesperson did not address questions about the cuts but said in an email that any suggestion that DHS is stepping away from addressing hate crimes or domestic terrorism is simply false.Since leaving government, Braniff has joined Miller-Idriss at the extremism research lab, where they and others aspire to build a national network that preserves an effort once led by federal coordinators. The freezing of prevention efforts, economic uncertainty and polarizing rhetoric in the run-up to the midterm elections create a pressure cooker, Braniff said.Similar discussions are occurring in more than a dozen states, including Maryland, Illinois, California, New York, Minnesota and Colorado, according to interviews with organizers and recordings of the meetings. Overnight, grassroots efforts that once complemented federal work have taken on outsized urgency.When youre the only diner in town, the food is much more needed, said Brian Levin, a veteran extremism scholar who leads Californias Commission on the State of Hate.Levin, speaking in a personal capacity and not for the state panel, said commissioners are pedaling as fast as we can to fill the gaps. Levin has tracked hate crimes since 1986 and this month released updated research showing incidents nationally hovering near record highs, with sharp increases last year in anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim targeting.The commission also unveiled results of a study conducted jointly with the state Civil Rights Department and UCLA researchers showing that more than half a million Californians about 1.6% of the population said they had experienced hate that was potentially criminal in nature, such as assault or property damage, in the last year.Prevention workers say thats the kind of data they can no longer rely on the federal government to track.For a commission like ours, it makes our particular mission no longer a luxury, Levin said.Hurdles LoomSome state-level advocates wonder how effectively they can push back on hate when Trump and his allies have normalized dehumanizing language about marginalized groups. Trump and senior figures have invoked a conspiracy theory imagining the engineered replacement of white Americans, as the president refers to immigrants as poisoning the blood of the country.Trump uses the terrorist label primarily for his political targets, lumping together leftist activists, drug cartels and student protesters. In March, he suggested that recent attacks on Tesla vehicles by terrorists have been more harmful than the storming of the Capitol.The actions of this administration foment hate, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, a Democrat, told a meeting last month of the states Commission on Hate Crime Response and Prevention. I cant say that it is solely responsible for hate activity, but it certainly seems to lift the lid and almost encourages this activity.A White House spokesperson rejected claims that the Trump administration fuels hate, saying the allegations come from hoaxes perpetrated by left-wing organizations.Another hurdle is getting buy-in from red states, where many politicians have espoused the view that hate crimes and domestic terrorism concerns are exaggerated by liberals to police conservative thought. The starkest example is the embrace of a revisionist telling of the Capitol riots that plays down the violence that Biden-era Justice Department officials labeled as domestic terrorism.The next year, citing First Amendment concerns, Republicans opposed a domestic terrorism-focused bill introduced after a mass shooting targeting Black people in Buffalo, N.Y.The leader of one large prevention-focused nonprofit that has worked with Democratic and Republican administrations, speaking on condition of anonymity because of political sensitivities, said its important not to write off red states. Some Republican governors have adopted strategies after devastating attacks in their states.A white supremacists rampage through a Walmart in El Paso in 2019 the deadliest attack targeting Latinos in modern U.S. history prompted Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to create a domestic terrorism task force. And in 2020, responding to a string of high-profile attacks including the Parkland high school mass shooting, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis released a targeted violence prevention strategy.The pitch is key, the nonprofit director said. Republican officials are more likely to be swayed by efforts focused on violence prevention than on combating extremist ideologies. Use the language and the framing that works in the context youre working in, the advocate said.Still, gaps will remain in areas such as hate crime reporting, services for victims of violence and training to help the FBI keep up with the latest threats, said Miller-Idriss, the American University scholar.What feels awful about it is that theres just entire states and communities who are completely left out and where people are going to end up being more vulnerable, she said.Cautionary Tale From MichiganOn a summer night in 1982, Vincent Chin was enjoying his bachelor party when two white auto workers at a nightclub outside of Detroit targeted him for what was then called Japan bashing, hate speech stemming from anger over Japanese car companies edging out American competitors.The men, apparently assuming the Chinese-born Chin was Japanese, taunted him with racist slurs in a confrontation that spiraled into a vicious attack outside the club. The men beat 27-year-old Chin with a baseball bat, cracking his skull. He died of his injuries four days later and was buried the day after his scheduled wedding date. Vincent Chin (Bettmann/Getty Images) Asian Americans outrage over a judges leniency in the case the assailants received $3,000 fines and no jail time sparked a surge of activism seeking tougher hate crime laws nationwide.In Michigan, Chins killing inspired the 1988 Ethnic Intimidation Act, which was sponsored by a Jewish state lawmaker, David Honigman from West Bloomfield Township. More than three decades later, Arbit the Jewish lawmaker representing the same district led the campaign to update the statute with legislation he introduced in 2023 and finally saw adopted in December.It felt like kismet, Arbit told ProPublica in an interview a few days after the event at Temple Israel. This is the legacy of my community.But theres a notable difference. Honigman was a Republican. Arbit is a Democrat.Its sort of telling, Arbit said, that in 1988 this was a Republican-sponsored bill and then in 2023 it only passed with three Republican votes.Some Republicans argued that the bill infringes on the First Amendment with content-based speech regulation. One conservative state lawmaker told a right-wing cable show that the goal is to advance the radical transgender agenda.Arbit said it took sheer brute force to enact new hate crimes laws in this hyperpartisan era. He said state officials entering the fray should be prepared for social media attacks, doxing and death threats.In the summer of 2023, Arbit was waylaid by a right-wing campaign that reduced his detailed proposal to the pronoun bill by spreading the debunked idea it would criminalize misgendering someone. Local outlets fact-checked the false claims and Arbit made some 50 press appearances correcting the portrayal but they were drowned out, he said, by a disinformation storm that spread quickly via right-wing outlets such as Breitbart and Fox News. The bill languished for more than a year before he could revive it.In December 2024, the legislation passed the Michigan House 57-52, with a single Republican vote. By contrast, Arbit said, the bill was endorsed by an association representing all 83 county prosecutors, the majority of them Republicans. Those who see the effects up close, he said, are less likely to view violent extremism through a partisan lens.These are real security threats, Arbit said. Shouldnt we want a society in which youre not allowed to target a group of people for violence?
