Latest news with #CenterforPreventionProgramsandPartnerships
Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump Admin Taps 22-Year-Old Who Is One Year Out of College for Terrorism Prevention Role at Homeland Security
The Trump administration has hired a 22-year-old recent college graduate for an important role at the Department of Homeland Security. Thomas Fugate was recently hired to help oversee the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, known as CP3, which works to combat terrorism and targeted violence. "It sounds like putting the intern in charge," one counterterrorism expert told ProPublica upon hearing the Fugate is the latest political appointee of President Donald Trump's administration to raise some eyebrows. The 22-year-old graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio in May 2024 and quickly found himself in an important national security role after helping with Trump's third presidential campaign and working in a government affairs position for The Heritage Foundation, according to his LinkedIn. He was tapped to be a special assistant at the Department of Homeland Security, who will now be entrusted with preventing terrorism. Fugate's role includes helping to oversee the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, known as CP3, which works to combat terrorism and targeted violence. As of September 2024, CP3 is also in charge of administering 35 grants, totaling $18 million, under the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention program. Fugate's LinkedIn profile, which was taken down as his story went viral, noted that he was a checkout clerk at an H-E-B grocery store as recently as 2022. It also listed experience on multiple political campaigns and in Model U.N., however, there was no evidence of counterterrorism expertise or any national security experience that would immediately qualify him for a DHS role. 'Maybe he's a wunderkind. Maybe he's Doogie Howser and has everything at 21 years old, or whatever he is, to lead the office. But that's not likely the case,' one counterterrorism researcher, who has worked closely with CP3, told ProPublica. 'It sounds like putting the intern in charge.' ProPublica also emailed a senior DHS official to ask about Fugate's position and was told his CP3 duties had been added to his role as an aide in an Immigration & Border Security office. 'Due to his success, he has been temporarily given additional leadership responsibilities in the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships office,' the official wrote. 'This is a credit to his work ethic and success on the job.' However, the counterterrorism official told the outlet that it's 'reckless' to put such an inexperienced civilian in charge of Homeland Security duties — especially at a time when multiple high-profile attacks have made headlines in recent weeks. 'We're entering very dangerous territory,' the expert said. Fugate's hiring follows significant DHS downsizing, part of Trump's promised government reduction. In March, the administration made major cuts at the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman and the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman. 'These offices have obstructed immigration enforcement by adding bureaucratic hurdles and undermining DHS's mission,' agency spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said at the time. 'Rather than supporting law enforcement efforts, they often function as internal adversaries that slow down operations.' In April, DHS attempted to further thin its ranks by offering buyouts and early retirement options to staffers. 'The American people deserve a government that works for them, something President Trump has promised,' McLaughlin said. 'Every dollar spent and position filled at DHS should be focused on our core mission of securing our homeland and keeping the American people safe.' Read the original article on People
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Experts warn of more attacks and terrorism as Trump hacks law enforcement budgets to fund his deportation plans
Federal cuts to local and state terrorism combating efforts have raised concerns among advocates and researchers about the possibility of more attacks at a time when threats of violence are on the rise. Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has directed his administration to reallocate some law enforcement resources to assist in carrying out his mass deportation agenda. That includes shutting down a national database that kept track of attempted and successful terrorism and targeted violence events and cutting FBI staff tasked with focusing on domestic terrorism. The decision to shift focus has left some violence prevention advocates fearful that it could create gaps in security measures, leading to tragic events. 'It's simple: we will see more school and workplace violence, more hate-fueled violence and terrorism and our political leadership will see more assassination attempts,' William Braniff, the former director of the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships at the Department of Homeland Security, told the Guardian. The purpose of the center is to provide federal resources to local law enforcement, schools, and nonprofits in helping prevent targeted threats and attacks. In March, approximately 20 percent of its staff were terminated during federal workforce cuts. 'This is the government putting itself at risk,' Braniff added. Officials across the country have hinted at similar concerns. During a town hall earlier this month, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told an audience that federal resources for state and local domestic terrorism combating efforts were depleting, ProPublica reported. 'The federal government used to prioritize domestic terrorism, and now it's like domestic terrorism just went away overnight,' Nessel said. 'I don't think that we're going to get much in the way of cooperation anymore.' In March, the administration shut down the Terrorism and Targeted Violence program, which maintained a public dataset of targeted violence instances to assist professionals in understanding the scope of violence throughout the country. The dataset provided specific information, including findings that perpetrators of this type of violence are increasingly older than previously thought, and it's more targeted at schools – data that some have accused the Justice Department of missing for several years. Just days before DHS terminated the project, the team said it identified a 25 percent increase in terrorism or targeted violent events in the first two months of 2025 compared to the same time period last year. Those findings were consistent with DHS's 2024 Homeland Threat Assessment, which predicted the terrorism threat would 'remain high' over the next year. The assessment cited violent extremist responses to domestic sociopolitical developments and international events as a potential reason for increasing attacks. Yet, federal domestic terrorism combating resources for local and state officials appear to have been scaled back. Jacob Ware, an expert on domestic terrorism at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Reuters that 'there is a broader desire, I think, within the administration to, at best, ignore data and put their head in the sand and, at worst, to realign resources away from this battle.' Concerns about potential increasing threats and attacks have led some lawmakers to sound the alarm. Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois has asked FBI Director Kash Patel and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to reverse course on it's approach to domestic terrorism combating efforts, calling it a 'institutional pullback from confronting the full scope of domestic terrorism.' A spokesperson for the Justice Department told ProPublica that it is 'focused on prosecuting criminals, getting illegal drugs off the streets, and protecting all Americans from violent crime.''Discretionary funds that are not aligned with the administration's priorities are subject to review and reallocation,' the spokesperson added. The Independent has asked the White House for comment.
The Independent
18-03-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
They worked to prevent violence and terrorism at the agency created after 9/11. Then they got fired
A federal program designed to prevent targeted violence and terrorism in the United States has lost 20% of its staff after layoffs hit its probationary staffers. The Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships was a redefined version of programs created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as a way to identify people who could pose new terrorism threats or carry out violence and prevent tragedies by getting them help. It has a mission enlisting parents, coaches, teachers and ministers to head off trouble before it starts by training them to look for signs of trouble in advance. That job became far more difficult after eight members of the center's staff were fired in early March as part of the Trump administration's efforts to trim the government by getting rid of probationary staffers. According to a Department of Homeland Security employee and a center employee who was fired, the staffers were rehired late Monday but were then put on administrative leave, following two March 13 court decisions ordering the Republican administration to rehire fired probationary staffers. The administration vowed to fight the decisions. The staffers spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concerns they might be targeted for retribution. The center's director confirmed the terminations in a statement to The Associated Press. William Braniff said that with his appointment to the director's job ending soon, he decided the best thing he could do for the staffers and for the center was to 'resign alongside of them, as some agencies and departments have rehired people in mission critical offices once they were made aware of the implications of those terminations.' Braniff said there is a huge demand for the assistance provided by the center, called CP3 for short. 'CP3 is the inheritor of the primary and founding mission of DHS — to prevent terrorism,' he said, adding that the center's approach "is as effective for preventing school shootings as it is for terrorism prevention.' In a post on LinkedIn before he resigned, Braniff said grant applications last year increased 82% and 27 states were lined up to work with the center to create plans to address targeted violence and prevent terrorism; 16 states already had plans in place or were creating them. The employees terminated included former social workers, mental health professionals and state public health officials. Before the layoffs there had been more than 40 staff members at the center, with most based in Washington, D.C. In a statement, Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said President Donald Trump is leading an effort to make 'sweeping cuts and reforms' across the federal government to get rid of ' egregious waste and incompetence.' She said leaders at the department 'identified non-mission-critical personnel in probationary status' and added: 'DHS remains focused on supporting law enforcement and public safety through funding, training, increased public awareness, and partnerships.' Tom Warrick, a former counterterrorism official at Homeland Security who's now at the Atlantic Council, said the center, launched in 2021 under the Biden administration, was intended to develop projects that try to identify people before they turn violent, regardless of ideology or motivation, and steer them toward help through community health programs. Warrick said that the center has been doing 'pioneering' work and that the payoff is 'enormous' in terms of shootings and attacks averted. 'What they really need to do is to expand it, not cut it back,' he said. The grants provide funding to state, local, tribal and territorial governments, nonprofits and education institutions to help them establish or grow their own programs to address targeted violence and terrorism. The center replaced the Trump-era Office for Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention, which itself replaced an Obama-era program called Countering Violent Extremism. Earlier iterations of the program were criticized for unfairly targeting Muslim and minority communities, and critics said it was difficult to measure results. Some of those concerns still remain, said Spencer Reynolds, senior counsel to the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program. He said the Brennan Center has long had concerns about the program's civil liberties protections. Even with the emphasis on bringing in public health providers, he said, there's still too much of an emphasis on law enforcement. Last year, the center announced $18 million in grant funding to 35 recipients. Those grants included $700,000 to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office in Florida as it worked to 'increase community awareness of the signs that someone may be on a pathway to violence.' Another $344,982 went to the Southwest Texas Fusion Center to help it expand its behavioral threat assessment and management team to cover more counties in southwest Texas, where it works to help schools reduce violence. Another grant, for $451,878, to Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina aimed to tackle 'extremist and terrorist radicalization and recruitment" of college students.
