Since 9/11, the United States has invested more than $1 trillion directly into the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and trillions more dollars into wars fought in the name of counterterrorism, intelligence centers, surveillance, and counter-extremism programs. That money bought a sprawling security architecture that provided safer airports, fusion centers connecting federal and local intelligence, reforms to disaster relief, and new counterterrorism units at every level of government. But since President Donald Trump took office in January, many of those investments have been completely erased. Americans may be no safer today from foreign and domestic terrorism than they were on September 11, 2001. In some ways, given the rise of domestic violent extremism and the political encouragement of it, Americans may be even more vulnerable.
This a sobering reality for me. I served as a 9/11 first responder with the New York City Fire Department. Marking the day means remembering the tremendous loss of life caused by the attacks, including deaths from toxic exposure at Ground Zero that continue even today, and the sacrifices of many in the days, weeks, and years since.
Post-9/11 investments created what many of us in homeland security thought was a permanent paradigm shift: stronger defenses against both transnational and domestic terrorism; improved information sharing between the federal, state, and local government; and a public safety architecture built to detect, deter, respond to, and rapidly recover from “over the horizon” threats. But today, at the direction of the president, we are witnessing the degradation of those homeland security capabilities.
The Destruction Reaped by DOGE
The creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was sold by the Trump administration as merely a streamlining measure, but for DHS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), it has been anything but. Since January, DOGE has forced wholesale reorganizations, inserted partisan appointees with little to no subject matter expertise, and siphoned resources from terrorism prevention into politically charged enforcement priorities. FEMA, in particular, has been pressured to align disaster relief with immigration enforcement, which has nothing to do with helping Americans recover from catastrophe. This kind of political interference erodes mission clarity and makes the U.S. homeland less prepared for potential crises.
DOGE activities have raised serious alarms for privacy and civil liberty organizations. Partnering with Palantir Technologies, DHS and the Department of Justice are now aggregating vast datasets, including the financial, social media, and travel records of Americans into powerful analytic tools that can be used for domestic spying. These tools were originally designed for tracking terrorists overseas, but are increasingly applied to U.S. citizens. The risk is clear: Palantir’s platforms could be used to monitor political activity, dissent, or even voting behavior. When the line between counterterrorism and domestic surveillance blurs, democracy itself is threatened. To be clear, post-9/11 measures such as the Patriot Act, the expansion of government surveillance powers, and bulk metadata collection already blurred the lines between counterterrorism and domestic monitoring. The difference now is who the tools are aimed at, if they are being politicized, who controls them, how transparent their use is, and how weak the guardrails are in protecting the rights of U.S. persons.
DHS also shuttered its Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL), stripping away a critical oversight function. The poorly named CRCL may have been a victim of anti-wokeism, with uninformed DOGE and White House staffers thinking the office had something to do with the Civil Rights movement. Instead, it was one of the few internal offices empowered to review DHS operations for compliance with constitutional protections and to protect Americans from surveillance abuses that the right constantly decries. Its reports often highlighted mission creep and potential abuses in counterterrorism and immigration enforcement. Without CRCL, there is no independent watchdog inside DHS to push back against government overreach. The absence of this office leaves all Americans exposed to unchecked surveillance, targeting, and discrimination.
The Hollowing Out of America’s Primary Counterterrorism Force
Since January, Trump has carried out a purge of some of the FBI’s most experienced and knowledgeable senior agents. FBI officials who worked on cases concerning the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol have become targets of harassment and threats. These are men and women who carried out lawful investigations into a violent attempt to overturn the 2020 election, and now they are being treated like political enemies of the president. This undermining of the FBI may embolden domestic extremists who already believe the system is rigged against them. It certainly reduces the federal capacity to protect the homeland.
Meanwhile, valuable FBI resources have also been diverted to support ICE deportation operations at the cost of protecting Americans against future terrorist attacks. This change in priorities represents the most dangerous policy shift I’ve seen in the post-9/11 era. It distracts the very people trained to identify and disrupt terrorist plots before they happen. Immigration enforcement has never been the FBI’s mission and forcing it into that role creates both inefficiency and vulnerability. When you take counterterrorism specialists and reassign them to track migrants, you inevitably reduce the ability to monitor potential terrorist threats. And, despite the political narrative, the foreign terrorist threat has not disappeared. ISIS-K has carried out mass-casualty attacks abroad and continues to plot against Western targets, al-Qaeda branches are active from Yemen to the Sahel, and Iran’s proxy networks remain a persistent danger to U.S. interests.
The administration is telling the public that is still pursuing terrorists at home and abroad, with a focus on what it calls “narco-terrorists,” or drug cartels that use violence to protect their criminal drug trade. And while I personally applaud the administration’s pursuit of stanching the flow of deadly fentanyl into the United States, I do not believe it should come at the cost of keeping the country safe from other threats. Drug cartels are criminal enterprises driven by profit, not ideologically driven terror groups committed to killing Americans. Conflating transnational criminal organizations with transnational terrorist organizations overwhelms already strained homeland security resources. The administration cannot simply slap a “terrorist” label on a criminal organization and then applaud itself for protecting Americans from “terrorists.” It is as absurd as the administration criminalizing homelessness and then bragging about how it brought down crime by removing encampments.
Domestic Terrorism Deprioritized; Violent Assaulters Lionized
We are also witnessing a seismic shift in the domestic terrorism (DT) detection and enforcement landscape. Under this administration, the FBI has slashed staffing and tracking tools in its DT unit, and agencies such as DHS and the State Department are dismantling programs and actively scrubbing language that describes DT threats as emanating from far-right extremists. This coincides with a Republican makeover of January 6 offenders, turning the violent rioters into “political prisoners,” a cosmetic overhaul that would make the “Human Ken Doll” jealous. This recasting of events follows Trump’s pardoning of them. These domestic extremists are now praised by the right as patriots. They are invited to political rallies, with several prominent insurrectionists suing the federal government for their prosecution, and hundreds more considering taking class action.
This whitewashing sends a dangerous message to extremists: violence in the name of the ruling party will be pardoned, if not encouraged. And those who attack the U.S. government in service of the president may eventually be rewarded, both reputationally and financially. I cannot overstate how corrosive this is to deterrence. In the homeland security world, we count on consequences to shape future behavior and to serve as a deterrent for violence. But when those punishments are erased, the signal to future attackers is unmistakable. Absolving or rewarding political violence is the optimal way a society normalizes violent extremism and terrorism at home.
A dangerous countertrend is also emerging: the demonization of those on the left of the political spectrum. Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of designating ANTIFA, an anti-fascist political movement, as a domestic terrorist group, which would represent the first such group designation in U.S. history. There are currently no domestic organizations that have been formally designated by the US government as a “Domestic Terrorist Organization.” The government has not even designated the original American domestic terror organization, the Ku Klux Klan, as a DT group and they are still overtly active in 10 states. ANTIFA is not a formal organization. Instead, it is a loose collection of activists and tactics with no hierarchy, membership rolls, or centralized command. Treating it like al Qaeda or ISIS would be a categorical error with enormous consequences. It would mean that anyone accused of engaging in anti-fascist protest activity could be labeled a terrorist, opening the door to law enforcement abuse and political persecution. Such a move would criminalize dissent and set a precedent for branding political opponents as enemies of the state. Imagine attending a march to peacefully protest and getting arrested because one of the organizers is loosely linked to the ANTIFA movement. Or worse, being charged with “terrorism” because one holds anti-government sentiment, or shares a political meme online. The United States would quickly resemble the dystopian future described by George Orwell in his book 1984.
Speaking on Fox News in August, Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller called the Democratic Party a “domestic extremist organization.” This assertion is spreading like wildfire in far-right extremist forums. But it is no longer fringe rhetoric, it is being promoted by Trump’s inner circle. In a country where political polarization already fuels extremist violence, this kind of language accelerates the risk of stochastic terrorism against elected officials, their staffers and volunteers, or anyone with a Democratic Party bumper sticker on their car.
I’ve studied extremist movements for decades, and I can tell you with certainty that once you start branding political opponents in such a dark and menacing manner, violence is never far behind. There is clear intent behind the demonization of Democrats as domestic extremists. Miller has not retracted his statement, and therefore we must take this as a credible and specific threat directly from the administration.
Violent Left-Wing and Nihilist Ideologies Spreading Online as Political Violence Rises
The demonization of migrants and transgender people is now a central feature of rightwing political rhetoric. These groups are being scapegoated as serious threats to the country, despite evidence showing no such danger. Homeland security experts know this is how stochastic terrorism works: leaders vilify a community, and eventually someone with means and malice takes violent action against them. Migrants and LGBTQ+ people are already facing elevated levels of harassment and attacks, with over 950 anti-LGBTQ+ bills considered in states across the country between 2023 and 2024. In 2023, hate crimes against LGBTQ+ victims constituted nearly 25 percent of all hate crimes recorded by the FBI. By further inflaming hate against this community, political leaders and influencers on the right are effectively putting a target on its back. In response, LGBTQ+ citizens have started arming themselves and taking firearms classes, even as the Department of Justice considers stripping trans people of their Second Amendment rights.
As hateful rhetoric on the right intensifies, violent left-wing groups, including so-called “trans anarchists” who advocate anarchist principles and violence in support of trans rights. Although, no violent acts have been attributed to these groups, they are a growing concern. Nihilist communities who essentially believe that “no lives matter,” are growing online. A recent FBI arrest in Los Angeles involved a man suspected of being part of a “nihilist extremist group” known as “764.” These networks reject traditional politics and civic order altogether, embracing a worldview that celebrates chaos, destruction, and sometimes mass violence. We’ve seen similar ideological fringe groups before, but what’s different now is their ability to recruit, radicalize, and coordinate on encrypted platforms. As someone who tracks extremist trends for a living, I worry about disaffected and marginalized young people coming into contact with nihilist ideologies.
Today, politically motivated violence is a credible threat to the homeland and threatens to erode American democracy from within. A day before the anniversary of September 11, Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and cofounder of Turning Point USA, was shot and killed while speaking at Utah Valley University. His assassination follows other shocking acts of political violence over a brief timespan, including the attempted assassination of Trump, and the killing of Democratic Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband earlier this summer. The United States Capitol Police has reported that threats against lawmakers continue to rise, with nearly 9,500 cases documented in 2023. That is the highest total since the January 6 attack, and it is a stark reminder that extremists are increasingly turning their anger into violence aimed directly at political figures.
Dismantling to the Tools to Defend the Homeland
Under the Biden administration, DHS confirmed that hundreds of individuals on the terrorist watch list have been encountered at the U.S. border in recent years. DHS also openly acknowledged that there are thousands of “got-aways,” people who entered the country undetected. We have no way of knowing how many of those people are aligned with foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs). Although Biden officials downplayed the risk at the time, in homeland security circles we know that the unknowns are often more dangerous than the knowns. While I applaud the Trump administration for locking down the border, the threat is likely already inside the country.
And now, DHS’ leading counterterrorism prevention office is led by a 22-year-old former intern with no experience in homeland security. The Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3) was built to oversee complex partnerships with state and local agencies, coordinate prevention programs, and engage in sensitive community outreach. Leadership of such an organization requires deep knowledge of the terrorism landscape, plus law enforcement and public trust-building efforts. CP3 is not some community project that one of my undergrad students uses in their capstone paper. By elevating someone so blatantly unqualified, the Trump administration effectively neutered the office’s credibility and capabilities. As someone who ran the fusion intelligence center in the nation’s capital during critical national security moments, including on January 6, 2021, I can tell you this kind of appointment is dangerous and will backfire.
It is also important to note that the administration has feverishly sought to cut DHS programs such as the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) grant program and the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP). The TVTP grant is administered by CP3, and in a July 17 press release, DHS confirmed that it eliminated $18.5 million in CP3 grants because they were cutting “wasteful and ideologically driven programs,” while also drastically reducing the center’s staff.
The NSGP is pivotal in assisting private sector non-profits, such as schools and churches, in meeting their security goals. This grant program is expected to see its 2024 budget of $454 million slashed to $274 million. These rollbacks could not come at a worse time. These funds help communities train staff, harden soft targets, and build local prevention networks against extremist violence. This is not an effort to eliminate waste and fraud, it is a signal to extremists that the federal government is hastily retreating from protecting vulnerable communities.
Lastly, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) was created by Congress during Trump’s first term to protect critical election infrastructure, defend against cyberattacks, and oversee programs such the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards. At the time, homeland security professionals, including myself, applauded the Trump administration for addressing a growing vulnerability. But CISA drew the ire of Trump when Christopher Krebs, its Trump-appointed director, refused to back Trump’s claims of a stolen 2020 election. Now, in a clear case of retaliation, Krebs is under federal investigation and the agency he once led is being gutted. The administration wants to transfer $300 million of its 2025 budget to ICE operations. Weakening CISA at this moment is like removing the locks from your front door in a high-crime neighborhood (and perhaps opening the door wide and leaving cookies and milk on the doorstep). Letting American election infrastructure go unprotected is pure recklessness, as foreign actors such as Russia, Iran, and China are openly plotting election interference, in some cases using sophisticated AI tools.
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On September 11, 2001, I was in New York City, one block away from the North Tower as it came crashing down. The sound was deafening, unlike anything I have heard in my life. Today, it is quiet, but that does not mean it is safe to become less vigilant. It isn’t just transnational zealots bent on apocalyptic violence that Americans must defend against, it is also fellow citizens seeking to redress a spectrum of perceived grievances with violence.
In less than a year, the Trump administration has transformed DHS from a complex and multifaceted juggernaut to an anemic agency with a singular focus: illegal immigration. We owe it to the thousands of people that lost their lives on that terrible day 24 years ago, and the first responders and service members who have paid the ultimate price in the years after, to make good on their sacrifice.
Every year we utter the grim slogan “Never Forget,” but this year, it seems that so many in this administration have forgotten. In my assessment, we are no better at addressing terrorism threats 24 years after 9/11. In fact, I fear the worst is yet to come.
