The Trump administration continues to take an extreme hardline stance on immigration, pushing out Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen for not being fully committed to separating immigrant children from their families.
President Trump has justified his crackdown at the Southwest border by claiming that it's necessary for national security. Yet, the President appears to neglect protecting Americans from a far more insidious threat: homegrown terrorism.
Writing on the CNN website Tuesday, legal analyst Jennifer Rodgers points out that white supremacist terrorism appears to be on the rise. "Headlines are full of recent terrorist attacks carried out by people with white supremacist views; they include the Tree of Life synagogue killer, the Coast Guard lieutenant charged with plotting a major attack on politicians and news anchors perceived to be left-leaning (he has pleaded not guilty), the New Zealand mosque killer, and the mail bomber Cesar Sayoc," Rodgers writes.
She points out that the Trump administration seems to have ignored the findings of federal law enforcement that white supremacist terrorism poses as persistent threat. FBI Director Christopher Wray also found that white supremacy is a "persistent, pervasive threat."
Yet, the Department of Homeland Security has disbanded an intelligence and analysis unit devoted to homegrown extremists.
She does see a positive sign in the guilty plea federal prosecutors secured in the Cesar Sayoc case. Sayoc, a Trump supporter further radicalized by social media, mailed bomb threats to a number of public figures he perceived to be enemies of the President.
"Of course, we should be able to rely on our President, our intelligence communities, and our investigative agencies to take these threats seriously and act accordingly. Hopefully they do," Rodgers writes.
"But at least Sayoc's guilty plea is a sign that the criminal justice system part of our government is working to deter those who would wish to follow in Sayoc's footsteps."