In the waning days of the Obama administration, the Department of Homeland Security announced the recipients of $10 million worth of grants through its flagship counterterrorism initiative vaguely monikered “Countering Violent Extremism” (CVE). These were mostly law enforcement and community organizations, including two local groups, the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (or ICJIA, a state agency that creates policy and researches ways to make the state justice system more efficient) and Life After Hate (a nonprofit that works to “off-ramp” people from white supremacist and other extremist movements).
After Trump’s inauguration, his DHS appointees—including national security analyst and Breitbart contributor Katharine Gorka, known for her Islamophobic rhetoric—reevaluated the groups who were awarded these funds and rolled out a revised list of grantees in May of 2017. Life After Hate, which was supposed to get $400,000, was taken off the list. The ICJIA, however, remained, with a nearly $200,000 grant. Soon after the announcement, WTTW reported that some of the community organizations ICJIA listed as “partners” on their application never agreed to work with the agency.
Even before the 9/11 attacks birthed the Patriot Act, the federal government was already conducting mass surveillance in the Arab American neighborhoods of Bridgeview under the code name “Operation Vulgar Betrayal,” recently chronicled in the documentary film The Feeling of Being Watched. And long before that, the feds used COINTELPRO to spy on black and Latino political organizations under the guise of national security concerns. AAAN and other community groups are skeptical that a program connected with law enforcement or the national security apparatus could do anything but undermine community trust, especially among youth.
Nguyen isn’t alone in her analysis. Academics and former federal law enforcement workers at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice have been sounding the alarm about CVE since its inception, drawing attention to the fact that the scientific underpinnings of the “radicalization” theory have been debunked by empirical research and that it’s impossible to predict when and why someone becomes violent.
“Where is the scientific evidence that we need more data collection [on youth], that we need more counterterrorism programs?” Sankari asks, “as opposed to what we believe all young people need: more investment in education, more investment in comprehensive health services including mental health services. Let’s talk about raising the standard of living of young people before we talk about them allegedly wanting to join violent organizations.”
