The Heritage Foundation hosted a discussion on extremism and violence in the United States. This is one hour. Thank you john and welcome to the Heritage Foundation. Part in a discussion i think is particularly relevant at a particulate relevant time to be having this conversation. Primary aim ofe which is to reduce the threat of terrorism is important. This is partially down to a change in administration and a shift in how Homeland Security views the Obama Administrations preference for local, Community Led initiatives , the recently departed of the office of Community Partnership describes cbe as the First FederalAssistance Program to provide local communities with the resources to countermand extremism and the homeland. The last days of the obama 10nistration, ds announced million worth of grants to organizations to reflect this preference. The Trump Administration takes a more skeptical view. Recalibraterying to away from a Community Driven approach toward Law Enforcement. Police range of departments of have their cb budgets increased. Metrics of success seem to have been sidelined. That is just one of the topics we could discuss today, but there is some thing else that needs to be addressed. You are the best departments to work with. To all extreme ideologies need to be tackled as part. Taken froms can be European Countries and applied here in the United States . How do we measure its success. See these questions are answered soon because there is been more talk than there has been action. We have a stellar panel to help us address some of these questions. Be mohammedst will fraserrahim. He is an expert on extremism issues. As a Senior Program officer at the United States institute of peace. He served as an expert on cbe issues. He worked for the United States government for more than a providing strategic advice for the executive branch and support for issues on the National Security council. He is a phd candidate at Howard University with a focus on islamic thought, muslim communities in the west, and violent extremism. From him well be hearing seamus hughes. He regularly provides commentary to media outlets, including the new york times, the washington post, msnbc, fox news, and the bbc. He has testified before the u. S. Congress on multiple occasions. He has served on the lead prior to and ctc, he served as the senior as an advisor please give a round of applause as we initially hear from mohammed. Muhammed i want to thank the Heritage Foundation, in particular robin and his colleagues. Seamus is a good friend and we have worked sidebyside. Who are not familiar, this has been an organization that works on counter extremism. We work on the issue locally and my role is the new north america director, looking at these issues with the threat of violent extremism, certainly in the United States but globally as well. Individuals. Ed of our founder was a former extremist. He has recanted those views and has gone through a process of the reckless asian deradicalization. We deal with radicalism globally and particularly the United States . I want to begin with the big elephant in the room. This is not just an issue of extremism, this threat varies , thatar left nationalists skew that offer a strict interpretation of islam. It is important to recognize that the threat varies and there is a spectrum. I wanted to highlight that up front. The spectrum varies to point where an africanamerican killed by a white 2015 in mys in june hometown of charleston south roof carried out an attack against friends of my family. We have the incident in may 2016 gone in in order oregon. The problem varies in finding a surgical response. Off the data we have seen, the new American Foundation has indicated that 40 people in the u. S. Were killed by far right groups. The orlando shooting is hard to determine the motive. There are data points you can look at. The threat as we look at this is an external reality, the fact that they are dealing with this issue globally, whether it is africa, whether it is the middle east or other locations throughout the world. We must find ways to address that reality. It is important to highlight that this issue has been regardlesseen andhe terminology used, those who see this as a counterterrorism issue. Times we see individuals who have onedimensional viewpoints. That limits individuals. Erspectives american muslims are struggling to address this issue as well. Muslims have a diversity of viewpoints. American muslims are not a monolith. There are arabs, there are asians, there are africanamericans. Our viewpoints on this matter will very. Particular programs and efforts that will drive this home in a second. It is important to highlight that this viewpoint varies. It dictates how we find appropriate responses as well. It is important to look at realworld solutions. Have been engaged with Practical Solutions and which we can engage with real effort. One of the efforts is an the Critical Thinking program which we have been working with. We have been working frontlines with individuals who have gone down the path of extremism, finding real practical efforts that address their concerns, whether it is educational we offer one viewpoint out of many viewpoints that are out there. With. 2 pointd efforts of deradicalization. There are individuals we have worked with on finding an appropriate response, whether those individuals are affected by Mental Health concerns, or dealt with theological challenges. With onee have worked of the programs with the new dhs awards. We will be part of assisting in with one of the assistants one of the recipients of the awards that find credible ways to fight extremism. Efforts, just a few ,xamples we are dealing with these are individuals that are just coming home after being incarcerated for 10, 12, 13 years, they have reached out to us asking how they get involved, how they find other ways. The challenge is finding and having the resources that are in place. Is limit money that is not available to us to be able to tackle these issues. That requires government response but also local communities to work in concert with us. I will highlight the role of monitoring and evaluation. In april of this past year, we know there was a report that came out that talked about metrics that are in place that out, are we being successful in what we are doing . Some ofreport we saw the challenges that demonstrated effective responses. I think the jury is still out in finding tangible solutions. I will stop right there. Thank you. Thank you heritage for having me. Seamus hughes. We look at all forms of extremism, but we focus our recent work on isis in america. We track the cases of individuals charged with terrorist activities. It is about 131 people as of yesterday. There is not a typical profile of an isis recruit. My current job is looking at the threat side of it. I got into counter extremism about a decade ago. I was a congressional staffer, and my boss tasked me to figure out what was going on in minneapolis. Out to minneapolis. There is snow on the ground, it is freezing cold. I meet a lot of different folks there. What to find my career was a meeting with five mothers in a basement of a wreck a rec center. They said my kids have been brainwashed, they have joined a terrorist organization, can you help me get them that get them back . At some point in the radicalization process, there were individuals that were reachable. By the time they got in the plane, there was very little the federal government could do. I always think back to that moment. I never want to be in an Apartment Building talking to family members. Congress, the Obama Administration called my bluff and said why dont you try to implement it. I started working at the counterterrorism center. Going to mosques and Community Centers across the country, these are delicate conversations. We did a National Counterterrorism center along with a colleague had these conversations. Of saying i am from the Intelligence Community, it was more i am a father, i want to talk about kids that are drawn into this and how to we save our kids. Framing matters a lot. It is not just statistics. That have 131 folks been arrested, there are 131 folks with brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. 131 folks that are reachable at some point. Youre not going to be able to reach everybody, but that kid in minneapolis . You probably couldve tried something different. After three girls in denver trump after three girls in jump on a plane, i went to the mosque there and talked about these issues. Sometimes it was successful, sometimes it was not. That is where i frame how i look at countering extremism. The National Strategy can best be defined by a series of fits and starts. In 2009, the Obama Administration announced partnering to prevent extremism. There was a long strategy. The idea was three parts understand the threat, there was an understanding and recognition that there had been bad and , enhanceed training engagement with programs that doj already had with communities, and three, counting the propaganda while promoting our ideals. Those three strategy objectives framed the way they looked at things. A good strategy, it did not give a lead or any money he hide. Behind it. Y when i went to denver it was me and three of my friends working with Community Engagement. More folks had died in syria than there were doing engagement. Thatspeaks to the priority we put to this idea of prevention. After recognizing you cannot cover a country with three people, there was an understanding we should focus on three different policies. Losfirst in minneapolis, angeles, and boston. Each took on a different flavor. Minneapolis was focused more on root causes. Much more of a broadbased type of engagement. Midnight basketball type of things. Los angeles was Community Engagement. Was focused on individualized intervention programs. Ive a kid im worried about how great isis is. Each city took a different flavor. You have a coalition of the willing. Department of justice, community partners. At the same there were serious concerns about the implementation of cde and an administration that did not help define it in a way that made sense, so it became a catchall phrase. Because of and solution to all the worlds problems. In many ways, it was set up to have an uphill battle. Leadnize that there was no and no funding. There was again a reset in the last administration to look at lets set up a task force at the department of Homeland Security, lets put all the group of four in that nice fancy office building, and lets get everyone in a room and talk about these issues. And so you had a threetofourtimes increase of staff working on these issues. Their announcement of the grant program. Congress had gotten into the game and said lets put money on this. And there was a delay in getting the money out the door because for a variety of different reasons. Now, Flash Forward now, we have a new administration that wants to take a pause on this, a strategic pause, take a hard look at it. There are no advocates for cve, so if you are on the right side, you think it is too soft on terror, on the left side, too government overreach, and you have family members grappling with issues with no tools available. This is one of these issues that we cannot figure out how to solve. We have seen and i think we will see in the coming weeks a shift in the new administration, away from broadbased countering violent extremism programs what they would describe as terrorismprevention programs. So individuals, radicalizing to violence, those folks, as opposed to 300 people in the room talking about terrorism. Each administration will have successes and failures on these issues, especially in an environment that is so publicized, especially on this issue alone. We will see how this goes. The budget zeros out the Grant Funding for next year. It reduces the number of people at the dhs task force. Cve may not be able to get off the ground as long as it has been around. Two other things i wanted to mention, given things to be concerned about, and muhammad, is right, we track all the cases. The average prison sentence for a guy arrested for isolated activities is 14. 3 years, but we have arrested about 500 folks for terrorismrelated activities in the last 16 years. About 50 or so have been released from prison, and because terrorism is a form of crime, there will be recidivism. You have individuals who move back into society and move on. I think of a guy interviewed in boston who had a nice i. T. Job and a nice family, and then you have other individuals who are still quite extreme in their beliefs. We have not figured that out as a Public Policy question. If someone has served their time, do we move on from that, or is there some level of training, monitoring that needs to be approached . The last point in terms of challenges to look at is returning we have been fortunate to have small numbers compared to our european partners. 131 folks, while unprecedented in the u. S. Context, pales in comparison to my european british colleagues fellow countrymen. But there has been a number of individuals who have traveled from here to iraq, youre getting picked up, fleeing to turkey, and were going to have to figure out what is happening with these individuals. In new york there is oneonone intervention. In virginia, we are going to send a guy to prison for 330 years for joining isis. Theres no transparency in the system in how we approach this issue. It is something we want to grapple with. With that, i will end my remarks. Mr. Simcox thank you, seamus. Thank you both for a fantastic detailed look. I will abuse my position as chair and ask a simple, but maybe possibly tricky question. I wonder if i could get from both of you one practical thing you would like dhs to do that you think cve would improve policy. Mr. Hughes despite having spent my career doing broadbased engagement, i will get away from it. I think i did a good job dealing with this issue, but i cannot measure the effectiveness of 200 people. Im not sure that will not exacerbate the issue. I will move away from broadbased engagement toward more oneonone intervention programs, which have a host of civil rights and Civil Liberties concerns, but some of these things are solvable. You have to focus your efforts on that. Go back to congress, saying i need x amount of money. Right now we do not have any of that programming. Mr. Fraserrahim i would second that. I travel a lot overseas, and they are struggling to find out appropriate measures. I would advise the persontoperson interaction goes a long way. It is something that i know comes up quite a bit in my experience on the african continent, also in europe, so i would deal with that. And secondly, it is arts and culture. I know it sounds a bit corny, but i think really engaging people to mainstream against extremism is vital. That crosses into line of is this what government should be doing or not. But having the Human Experience resonates. Popculture resonates. So we need to find appropriate ways to balance that out, and the jury will be out on how that is to be done. But we can certainly work with them. Mr. Simcox thank you. I will open it up to the floor now. If you have questions, not comments, that would be great. If you could give your name and affiliation, that would be terribly helpful. I have a question in the front row, and then i will go to the gentleman behind them. Hi. I advise the British Government on their counter extremism policy. My question is, a practical one, but on the issue of framing, definition matters. Is there any way you stood on the name countering violent extremism . In britain, we changed our branding to be looking at extremism. I wonder where you stood on that. Im a journalist. I have one question about the prisons in the United States. Some former or current extremists, and some reports have recruiting terrorists. Can you comment on that . Mr. Simcox so we have the name and britons. Mr. Hughes in terms of prison radicalization, i have a colleague that sums it up. So we have cases of individuals radicalized to violence in prison. California is a good example. But has not bubbled up to an issue of mass importance. What happens is someone holds an extreme belief in prison and moves on and gets out. My concern is more individuals who have been arrested for providing Material Support to terrorism and are provided no approach to address what got them into prison to begin with. And you have seen the executive branch look at these issues differently. Sometimes we house all convicted terrorist in supermax, and sometimes we spread them out, and there are pluses and minuses in this. We saw the u. K. Structure that goes back and forth. We have not figured that out in a systematic way. In terms of framing, i can describe what jihadism is, what islamism is. If i was in a mosque and i said i want to talk what is about jihadism, i will lose my audience. It is important to talk about these things in an honest way, but you frame it depending on your audience. And i cannot see the u. S. Government moving toward prevention of extremism because there is a host of constitutional issues that would arise that would not be true in other places, the First Amendment and things like that. That said, i do not see how you prevent violent extremism without preventing extremism. To the extent we ask Civil Society to step up to the plate, we have to make that happen. We have to make that ask, and we havent. Mr. Fraserrahim i would agree with seaumus on it. The same issue with individuals were incarcerated with drug crimes, or manslaughter, there are not a lot of rehabilitation programs that are in the prison systems that are allowing them to reintegrate back into society. I think that needs to be parsed out a bit more. Certainly there are efforts. The bureau of prisons is doing the best of their ability, but it is something that should be explored much more at a national level. I think there needs to probably be a revisiting of the vetting process of individuals who are providing that spiritual counsel. Just because you have a religious individual, whatever the religion is, does not mean you have the Technical Expertise to deal with someone who has been radicalized. This is oftentimes there is a subject you put a religious person in there, an imam, minister, etc. , and they have all the skills to deal with this. I have engaged individuals who probably would have been radicalized themselves. That has to be explored a bit more. In terms of terminology use, yeah, i think depending on the environment, were probably fighting over tomato or tomahto. Islamist gets pushback. It is one of the best terms to capture a very difficult terminology. But again, i think it will vary. I think it will evolve. I do not see changing in the present administration, but hopefully there will be organizations and academics who will come up with solutions. Mr. Hughes when i was in the administration, the intelligence committee, every six months or so we would get a new executive on cve and they would have a new plan or new name for cve. That is all well and good, the framing issues. But semantics matters a lot. The programs matter more in this context, meaning that if the only programs we have for countering extremism is a resiliency exercise, that is not enough to tackle the issue that was at that point rising. I would always encourage my executives to stop focusing on changing the words and focusing on getting resources and folks on the ground. And understanding the strategic background you need to have on this, but i need people at the end of the day. Mr. Fraserrahim i wanted to add, the terminology of cve. When i have been out throughout the world and in the United States, i do not use the term cve. What do i talk about . Building trust, tolerance, inclusion, social cohesion, all these good terminologies that actually are trying to bring together communities. Words matter, terms matter, and so it is important that we go back to the basics to describe this phenomenon we are all struggling with, and i think if we can find perhaps softer terms, and maybe that is the basis then to find a more surgical terminology that we can all maybe find agreement. Mr. Hughes i am sorry. Now in going to be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. You do not want to make it so broad that it becomes so amorphous that it comes that catchall phrase. It is a little delegate balancing act. Mr. Simcox i will take more questions. I see a lady in the second row. And then the front row. Good morning. Im a College Student in maryland. My question is about how both panelists have mentioned a little bit about Community Outreach. And im just wondering what specific aspects of that has been unsuccessful that would lead you to say it is not as effective as oneonone interaction. Mr. Simcox thank you. Hi. Im a Program Officer for Civil Society and peace building. Thank you very much. I had a question. The resiliency programs you oversaw, and my question has to do with gender composition of your team, and wanting to know if your approach or strategies shifted or changed depending on your target demographics. So, if are you engaging children, men, or women . Mr. Simcox so we have got Community Outreach and resilience. Mr. Hughes i am a fan of Community Engagements. It falls in the bucket of good government. Government should engage about issues that concerns that. In terms of cve, in terms of trying to reach an individual who was radicalized and violent, that might not be your target demographic. That is why im saying im not saying do communities engage, but do not do Community Engagement under the rubric of cve. In terms of the composition and how we do engagement, it depended on the audience. My colleague is in the back checking his phone, but when he was at dhs, depends on the audience. There is also something powerful about others saying that. Depending on the audience we were engaging with, whether a traditional and conservative organization, it may have been my female colleague who would engage with the congregation. It depended on the situation. You do your best to try to get in the door, and then youre just based on the audience. You do not want to be forced into it. An example, i was in a mosque one time where an imam said can you talk to my congregation. I get up there and he said, ladies and gentlemen, he is from the Intelligence Community, he is going to talk to you. I should have, looking back on that, built a level of conversation with that man before that conversation so he did not throw me to the wolves. So that takes some levels of trust for folks to know what you are going to say is informed by research, by data, is not inherently but that takes a level of work on the front end, that we do not have a lot of time for. Mr. Fraserrahim i think the point on community, i used to work in the Intelligence Community. I was part of the department of Strategic Operational planning, being out there. I am also a generation of generations of muslims in america, and i am an average speaker. I studied classical islamic tests in west africa, in the middle east. I finished my ph. D. In this field. My experience is from various angles. It is personal, professional, academic as well. So when i am out there and engaging and having less government, i say, i left the war room, going to the peace room, and now being out working in the nonprofit space. You engage people and connect with them. It is not this distant person named muhammad. It is this distant person muhammad who gave the sermon this past year, who is trained in its tradition, who gives the issues a tough perspective, and also muhammad who engages individuals with individuals who have been radicalized you have to address activists will have their viewpoints. Those of us in the policy space will try to analyze it and in a pragmatic way that will give it the nuance. Also getting to your question. I think you have to be specific based off of the environment. One of the things we encouraged is to have women side by side in the issues we are dealing with. It cannot be allmale panels. In general i think it is important to have this diversity of viewpoints as well, and it is at the core of what i encourage. Mr. Simcox ok, i say the gentleman at the back, and i see somebody good afternoon. I am from the state department. Thank you for your comments. Great to see you again. Seamus, you mentioned the jail time is 15 years. What happens to those individuals prosecuted about 15 years ago and they are going to be getting out very quickly . I think if you look at the paintball case, if you look at the lackawanna individuals, some of them either are out or will be getting out. Do you think thats enough to jolt the government officials at cvi to come up with the comprehensive plan for, or is Something Else needed . Mr. Hughes i do not think so. I do not think it is enough to jolt. I was talking to a convicted terrorist who has moved on with his life and is doing good things. There was nothing that caused him to do that. It was selfawareness and deciding what i was 10 years ago is not what i want to do now. Individuals that went to jail at the height of al qaeda are coming out at the height of isis, and what does that mean for engagement . Weve seen reporting by Foreign Policy a gentleman issued concerns. We have seen recidivism. One of the highest ranking isis american folks was arrested and spent time in jail, and when he was released, he went to syria and joined isis. And so if that is not enough of a wakeup call, i am not sure what will. Unfortunately, it is going to have to be a newsworthy event for folks to take a focus on it. Mr. Fraserrahim i would just add to say 15 years ago we were dealing with al qaeda. Now we have the new kids of isis. And so we will have to deal with the reality of isis kids who are getting out. They may be a bit different than al qaeda. So how do we effectively respond to that . I spoke to one of my kids yesterday, you just got out, and he needs a job. He is struggling to find employment. He is struggling with finding opportunities. He is struggling with getting into university. That is the realworld situation that if he has done his time, what are we providing for him . Is that our responsibility . Im leaving that open ended because these are real things we are confronted with. They are individuals who are american citizens and they have to and want to be integrated back into american society. Us not providing that, what happens . Mr. Hughes if you talk to the bureau of prisons, they say, why did the guy who wanted to blow me up get special treatment . It is a real Public Policy question that should be debated on this. Do we put resources on individuals who have been convicted with terrorist charges, or for nonviolent offenders . What does that mean . Why do you get special treatment because you have been arrested for Material Support to terrorism . These are things that are important that we have not had the conversation in a practical way. Mr. Simcox ok, we have the gentleman in the back. And then i see a lady in the second row. Hello, good to see you. Former cve advisor for the countering violence and Extremist Task force at dhs. A quick twoparter. Narrative matters, trust matters, optics matters, and words matter. Unfortunately, we have an administration that may be perceived by some communities to be openly hostile. Unfortunately, these are the same communities that we need on the frontlines to have that level of trust, because there have been many studies in regard to bystanders and their ability to report and work at the Community Level to address many of the threats that Law Enforcement or the Intelligence Community may not be able to notice. So my question here is, given these obstacles, what do you see as ways to overcome this trust gap, for lack of a better term, to ensure that these efforts that were built on continue . And, second, the message domestic terrorism is also playing a significant part in this. Most recently, we heard about the wouldbe attack in minnesota on the mosque. And again, you have an administration who is not openly reaching out to communities, addressing this. But then on the secondpart question, what are the potential perils of narrowing the focus of cve strictly to a single ideology and perhaps not addressing the domestic terrorist threat . Hi. Our organization has developed one of the first evidencebased community countering violent extremism programs based out of montgomery county. We have been working with other immunities across the u. S. And internationally trying to train them based on the good practices and Lessons Learned that we have. When of the things we keep finding is when we talk about this, communityled, communitycentric approach, we forget the challenge is that a lot of local Civil Societies organizations face. A leader struggling because they have limited Institutional Capacity or limited or social capital that is necessary to reach out to their local hhss, health and Human Services folks, their regional fbi field offices, or even local Law Enforcement. Or maybe they do not even have enough support from us in the community to tackle these issues headon because a lot of the political baggage that is associated with the acronym. In so many words, we are also seeing a shift toward a more Law Enforcementcentric approach, and that seems to be what this Current Administration is encouraging as well. With that in mind, what kinds of recommendations would you provide for local Law Enforcement agencies that are interested, that are willing to take the lead on this issue with a particular eye on some of the challenges and Lessons Learned from the past . Mr. Simcox ok, we have the trust gaps, narrowing focus. Mr. Fraserrahim the simplest thing, establishing Community Liaison partnerships. Low cost in tight fiscal times. That can probably help dialogue that can probably help dialogue between Law Enforcement community and certainly communities themselves. Listen, the fact of the matter is, it does have a Law Enforcement matter to this. But i think it is a denial to say that there is not an aspect where it is protecting makeies, make the sure that Public Safety is in short, communities need to find tactical ways in which they take ownership and selfpolice. Be no different from my cousin chestot 19 times in the and it was the result of black on black crime. That is an unfortunate incident that i have to tell, this is when we were all around 17, 18 years old. So there is responsibility that has to be confronted within the communities themselves in having to take ownership. It is not always pretty, not always sexy. It is sometimes very difficult to look within and look at the reflection. Also, just to address your point on domestic terrorism threat. Good question. Politics matters sometimes. And it is not an easy it is not an easy balance. We do have a threat of domestic terrorism. I have laid out several early in my initial brief talking about dylann roof, certainly in minnesota, events that have transpired in the u. S. That is a real concern. That is just as important to address as the rising islamist threat that we are confronted with in the attacks that are taking place. Governments are probably going to be judicious in their response on that, but it has to be pushed on a regular basis. Mr. Hughes sure. A positive argument for the sake of conversation. In many ways you could argue that cve focused on the islamistjihadist approach to terrorism will focus on other forms of terrorism, meaning if you have a white supremacist you are concerned about, as a cop your option is to do intervention programs. If you have young man who is in terested in isis, your options are few and far between. So in many ways you could argue that cve is providing tools for to look at extremism in a way that does not frighten folks that we normally would. And the other argument in terms of other natures of the threat, yes, absolutely. You should be worried about the dylann roofs as well as the omar mattenseens. The approaches may be different, but sometimes there may be programs that may be transferable to jihadists and vice versa. And so i think you need to , prioritize the threat, but you can chew and walk at the same time on this. In terms of the trust deficit, i think that is an important question. Clearly, the rhetoric has not helped in terms of doing Community Engagement. We saw a number of organizations refuse Grant Funding after the new administration. Some of that was virtue signaling. Right . Some of that was looking at this and saying i was not comfortable. You can watch the rest of this event at cspan. Org. We are going live to new jersey with the president will sign a v. A. Bill. A secretary. V this is a really important piece of legislation and i want to recognize that this was passed with bipartisan support in the house and senate. I also want to thank our veteran service