DHS establishes new centre to tackle domestic extremism

The Department of Homeland Security has established a new Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3) to improve it’s ability to combat terrorism and targeted violence, consistent with privacy protections, civil rights and civil liberties, and other applicable laws.

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas said that CP3 will help build local prevention frameworks to provide communities with the tools they need to combat terrorism and targeted violence. The centre will replace the Office for Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention while ensuring DHS’s efforts are grounded in an approach to violence prevention that leverages behavioural threat assessment and management tools, and addresses early-risk factors that can lead to radicalisation to violence.

Mayorkas also announced a new, dedicated domestic terrorism branch within the Department’s Office of Intelligence & Analysis (I&A) to ensure DHS develops the expertise necessary to produce the sound, timely intelligence needed to combat threats posed by domestic terrorism and targeted violence.

The creation of CP3 and the I&A Domestic Terrorism Branch are the latest actions DHS is taking under Secretary Mayorkas’s leadership to comprehensively combat domestic violent extremism, including violent white supremacy. Since January 20, 2021, DHS has increased the development, production, and sharing of intelligence and other actionable information central to countering domestic violent extremism, which now poses the most significant and immediate terrorism-related threat to the United States.