Trump administration to end DHS program designed to thwart terror attacks

The Trump medication is readying to destruct a Department of Homeland Security coercion prevention programme that erstwhile authorities officials and experts accidental has helped thwart attacks successful the United States. The DHS fund submitted to Congress past period cancels the $18 cardinal coercion prevention assistance program, saying it “does not align with DHS priorities.”

“That enactment should beryllium quoted aft each aboriginal wide casualty lawsuit successful this country,” said a existent elder DHS authoritative who declined to beryllium named, citing fear of being fired.

Former DHS officials accidental they judge the humble program, which costs astir 4% of the military's marching set budget, has stopped convulsive attacks. It is designed to forestall a benignant of coercion that has go progressively common: lone-wolf attacks by individuals who are not members of an organized group.

Examples see the caller firebomb onslaught successful Boulder, Colorado, connected demonstrators marching successful enactment of Israeli hostages; the execution of a young mates extracurricular the Capitol Jewish Museum; the sidesplitting of 14 radical successful a New Year’s onslaught successful New Orleans; and the shooting of a United Health Care enforcement successful Manhattan.

“When radical say, ‘You can’t beryllium prevention doesn’t work,’ I inquire them, ‘Do you spell to the doctor? Do you person a fume detector successful your home?’ Then you judge successful prevention,” said Bill Braniff, a Biden medication appointee who oversaw the programme arsenic the manager of DHS’s Center for Prevention Partnerships and Programs.

A pistillate places a bouquet of flowers astatine a makeshift memorial for victims of an onslaught extracurricular of the Boulder County, Colo., courthouse connected June 3, 2025.David Zalubowski / AP file

John Cohen, a erstwhile elder DHS counterterrorism authoritative successful the Obama and Biden administrations, said the menace is growing. “Why was DHS created? To assistance the federation beryllium amended prepared to halt violent attacks pursuing Sept. 11,” helium said. “We person had since January a fig of schoolhouse shootings and 4 violent incidents — each by radical who acceptable those behavioral profiles.”

The White House and DHS did not respond to requests for comment.

The program, formally known arsenic the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program, precocious drew scrutiny erstwhile ProPublica published an article astir Braniff’s successor, a 22-year-old erstwhile Trump run idiosyncratic with nary applicable experience.

But the larger issue, experts say, is that the programme is being zeroed out. They telephone that a short-sighted determination successful an epoch erstwhile alienated loners are attempting wide unit attacks astatine a greater frequence than ever.

“Do I cognize for definite that we helped to avert schoolhouse shootings and wide casualty attacks? I americium 99% definite that we helped to avert a fig of them,” said Braniff, who present heads the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab astatine American University.

An embassy authoritative cleans humor disconnected the sidewalk astatine the tract of a shooting the nighttime earlier extracurricular the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum connected May 22, successful Washington, D.C. Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images file

Interest successful and request for the programme is precocious and spans the country. In 2024, DHS reported receiving 178 eligible applications from 47 U.S. states and territories requesting $98.9 cardinal for $18 cardinal successful disposable grants. The wealth funds authorities and section programs designed to assistance place radical who are radicalizing and perchance violent. They included school-based menace appraisal teams, intelligence wellness teams and programs designed to inoculate children against extremist messages connected societal media.

Specific examples are hard to cite, successful portion due to the fact that galore cases are confidential, and successful portion due to the fact that it’s hard to gully a consecutive enactment betwixt a authorities programme and a thwarted attack. But DHS documents mention a 2022 lawsuit arsenic an illustration of however they judge the programme helped halt a schoolhouse shooting.

After an outreach run astatine Palm Beach State College successful Florida urging students to beryllium vigilant astir online threats of violence, a pupil anonymously reported to authorities astir online posts threatening a wide shooting. Among the posts, according to tribunal records, were threats to perpetrate a “massacre,” and an inquiry, “who’s selling an AR-15?”

Authorities arrested and charged a young man, who yet was sentenced to probation and besides was the taxable of a hazard extortion order, records show.

“This is not the clip to beryllium ending that office,” said Cohen, the erstwhile elder DHS counterterrorism official. “This is the clip to beryllium expanding activities that are designed to observe emerging threats."