After years of focusing on external threats, The Department of Homeland Security is starting to look at homegrown extremism. Erroll Southers, Director, Homegrown Violent Extremism Studies, USC, says that this shift is happening at an important time for America.
“The intelligence component is extremely important as we talk about this issue. Most importantly, I think we’ll see state and local MDHS efforts be revamped and revised to refocus on this. Our thought has always been, from DHS’s point of view, the foreign terrorist threat. Even for Americans who were engaging here, it was about Americans being influenced by the foreign terrorist threat,” Southers said. “Now we’ve come to the realization and denial is over. Americans do kill Americans. They’re doing so in a greater rate than before in the past years. It’s a priority.”
