Bill would require transnational response to global white supremacy terrorist threat

A bill designed to strengthen the U.S. government’s counter-terrorism efforts against transnational white supremacy and identity groups was introduced in Congress.

The Countering Global White Supremacist Terrorism Act directs the U.S. Department of State to assess the global threat of the white identity terrorist movement and develop a strategy with other government agencies to respond to the interconnected global threat. Further, the legislation requires the State Department to report on these groups and determine whether they should be subject to sanctions.

“White identity groups pose a severe and deadly threat to societies around the world,” said U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa, and International Terrorism, and one of the bill’s sponsors. “Already, the world has seen how a white supremacist attack in one country can inspire people in other countries to use violence and the role of the dark web in spreading their hateful ideology and terrorist tactics. The United States must develop a whole-of-government strategy to confront these terrorist groups as seriously as any other transnational extremist group.”

Rep. Max Rose (D-NY) and Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also sponsored this bicameral legislation.

“The perpetrators of white supremacist violence don’t just share the same vile, hate-fueled ideology—they’re increasingly sharing resources, training, and global terrorist networks just like we’ve seen from violent jihadist terrorist groups for decades,” Rose, chair of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence & Counterterrorism, said. “This is a global problem, which is why we need the State Department to start confronting it with the same type of whole-of-government playbook that we bring to every other global threat.”

White identity and other far-right violent groups are growing around the world, the lawmakers said. However, they added, U.S. efforts to address this global threat lag behind other counter-terrorism efforts.

“There is no place in our world for white supremacist terror groups and they must be eradicated,” Menendez said. “We know all too well the horror that such groups have inflicted on our own country throughout history. Today these groups are internationally connected like never before – they inspire each other and trade techniques. And it needs to stop – our State Department has a key role to play in leading a diplomatic effort to counter these groups like we have with Al Qaeda and ISIS. This bill will better align our resources to understand and address this threat and require determinations as to whether such groups should be sanctioned as terrorists.”