Reports of the Trump administration’s plan to revamp a U.S. government program designed to counter all violent ideologies and instead focus only on Islamist extremism, is raising concerns among those working to counter violent extremism at the international, national and local levels.

Reuters reported Wednesday that the federal government program “Countering Violent Extremism” or CVE would be changed to “Countering Islamic Extremism” or “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism.” This would mean the program would no longer target groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out attacks in the United States, according to Reuters.

Such an approach could strip some of the benefit from having a CVE program, which was established in February 2015 to counter radicalization and terrorist acts through community partnerships, said Brian Levin, director of the Center for Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino.

“Our most prominent terrorism threat today in the United States does come from violent Salafist Jihadists,” he said. “But we also have the most diverse set of extremist movements threatening the country, from neo-Nazis, black separatists and sovereign citizens to animal liberation and environmental extremists. It’s like a logjam.”

A study by the Anti-Defamation League shows that of the 52 extremism-related deaths in 2015 in the U.S., 38 percent were caused by white supremacists, 37 percent were a result of domestic Islamic terrorism, 19 percent were linked to anti-government extremism and 6 percent were tied to anti-abortion extremism.

According to the same report, of the 295 domestic extremist-related deaths from 2006 to 2015, 70 percent involved white supremacists, 15 percent anti-government extremism and 13 percent domestic Islamic extremism.

The CVE initiative was introduced by the Obama Administration in 2015 as a pilot program in Los Angeles, Boston and Minneapolis. It created its own controversy and division within Muslim communities in Southern California and nationwide.

While officials said the initiative is a tool to reach out to Muslim groups through community events, mentoring and youth programs, its broader goal was to prevent radicalization and identify potential extremists.

Some groups, such as the Muslim Public Affairs Council, became partners in the initiative but others, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations or CAIR, backed away, suspecting the effort was just another way Muslims would be targeted and vilified.

The CVE program, even under the Obama administration, was “a smokescreen” for targeting the Muslim community, said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of Anaheim-based CAIR-LA.

“Even though they made it seem like it was going to encompass all groups, it was apparent to us from the documents and where the funds were going that Muslims were the focal point. It is a program that already unfairly targets Muslims and now, it’ll do so openly.”

Muslims are no more prone to violence or extremism than anyone else, Ayloush said.

Salam Al-Marayati, Muslim Public Affairs Council’s executive director, said by changing the name of the CVE program, the Trump administration will essentially kill whatever positive relationships or partnerships were built with the Muslim community.

The group took a different approach than CAIR in terms of cooperating and partnering with law enforcement in the CVE initiative.

“The red flag here is that the Trump administration is deliberately killing this partnership,” Al-Marayati said.

He said the group’s work with local law enforcement would continue as before, or even expand, but that would change if the federal program shifts focus.

Extremism is “not a Muslim problem, but a human problem,” said the Los Angeles Police Department’s Deputy Chief Michael Downing, who also heads the city’s Counter-Terrorism and Special Operations Bureau.

“There are violent extremist ideologies across the board,” he said. “Of course, radical Islamist extremism is the white elephant in the room. But if you single that out, you are leaving out other ideologies that have led to violent acts around the country.”

Downing said his department will continue to approach countering extremism in a “broad manner,” despite what the Trump administration’s stance might be.

Some experts, including Berlin-based Daniel Koehler, who has been working on deradicalization efforts in the U.S. and around the world, have sharp criticism for the Trump administration’s approach.

“It will essentially kill counter-extremism in the United States, further alienate Muslim communities, play into the hands of ISIS and other jihadist groups and burn one of the most effective counterterrorism tools,” said Koehler, a fellow of George Washington University’s new Program on Extremism at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security.

Koehler said the Trump administration, by excluding right-wing extremists from the CVE program, is sending a message to jihadists and mainstream Muslims alike that violence and terror from the far right can operate freely.

“Europeans made the same mistake of singling out a specific target group and are still suffering from the backlash,” he said. “Muslim communities, families and civil society are our first line of defense against violent extremism and they are the most effective partners in intervention work.”

Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.