Reuters reports that the Trump administration wants to revamp and rename a U.S. government program designed to counter all violent ideologies so that it focuses solely on Islamist extremism.
- Exclusive: Trump to focus counter-extremism program solely on Islam – sources, By Julia Edwards Ainsley, Dustin Volz and Kristina Cooke, Reuters (Thu Feb 2, 2017).
The existing program, Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), is part of the Department of Homeland Security and defines violent extremist threats as coming
"from a range of groups and individuals, including domestic terrorists and homegrown violent extremists in the United States, as well as international terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIL."
Sources quoted by Reuters say that CVE’s name would change to "Countering Islamic Extremism" or "Countering Radical Islamic Extremism" and it would no longer target groups such as white supremacists.
A list of Resources on the CVE website at DHS includes documents that include guiding principles such as
"Violent extremists have many motivations and are not limited to any single population, region, or ideology"
and documents that note the importance of the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties:
the mission of CRCL is an indispensable companion effort to help counter violent extremism.
Such documents could be withdrawn or altered if the policy changes described by Reuters are finalized.
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