Program devoted to providing local communities with resources to counter extremism in the homeland. In the last days of the obama 10nistration,dhs announced million of grants to reflect this preference. With the Trump Administration the reevaluation of these grants have taken place. Dhs is now trying to recalibrate cve toward Law Enforcement. A range of Police Department have had their cve budgets increased. Projects seem to have been sidelined. That is one of the topics we but thereuss today, is much else that needs to be addressed. Who are the best partners to work with . Should there be a strict criteria for engagement between partners . Do all extreme ideologies need to be tackled as part of cve . What lessons can be learned from European Countries . How do we measure success . We should answer these questions soon because there has been more talk about cve than action. We have a truly stellar panel today to address these questions. Im speaking first speaking first will be muhammad fraserrahim. Extremismxpert on issues and a scholar on africa. He served as a senior officer as the u. S. Institute of peace, where he served as an expert on cve issues. Mr. Fraserrahim speciality are on intellectual history and africa. He worked for the United States government for more than a decade, in the office of director of national intelligence, providing strategic advice to the executive branch, analytic support to the white house and the National Security council. Mr. Fraserrahim is a phd candidate at howard university. From him we will hear Seamus Hughes, the director of the program at George Washington. He is an expert on terrorism and cve. He provides commentary to mediate outlets, including the new york times, cnn, fox news, and the bbc. He has since applied before the u. S. Congress on multiple occasions. He previously worked at the National Counterterrorism center, leading efforts to implement a national cve strategy. He served as a senior counterterrorism advisor for the u. S. Senator Governmental Affairs committee. Will you please give a big round of applause, as we will initially hear from muhammad. Mr. Fraserrahim good morning, everyone. How is everyone doing . I want to thank the Heritage Foundation, particularly robin and his colleagues, a good friend who has come to a dialogue with and particularly i respect with the transatlantic connection of british americans coming together as well. Who has worked side by side. For those who are not familiar lliam is anm, qui organization that works on counter extremism, and we are now in north america. My role is the new north american director and looking at these issues, particularly the threat of violent extremism. Certainly in the United States, but globally as well. We are composed of individuals who themselves have been formers. Wahaswas a member who recanted views and has gone through a process of deradica lization and rehabilitation himself, and we have others. How do we deal with issues as it relates to preventing violent she missed him globally and in this case the United States . This is very timely. I want to begin with the big elephant in the room, which is important to highlight, which is the threat of violent extremism varies. This is not just an issue of islamist extremism. This threat varies from far right nationalism, domestic terrorism come and those beginning in islamistbased organizations that offer a very ofrow, strict interpretation islam. It is important to recognize the threat varies and there is a spectrum. I wanted to highlight that up front. That spectrum varies to the point where Richard Collins iii, and africanamerican student who was a member and was to graduate from university, was killed by a 2015,nationalist in june in my hometown of charleston, south carolina. Roof carried at an attack of friends of my family at a church. We had the incident in may when in oregon. May 2016 the threat varies. The problem set varies in finding a surgical, calculated , which is at the core of what we are trying to do. Seen data we have 48 people in the u. S. Were killed by farrightfully and groups as opposed to al qaedarelated groups of 45. The orlando shooting, it is hard to find the exact motive, but there are organizations that can write commentary on this as well. The threat, as we look at this, there is an attorney and external reality, whether dealing with this globally, or other locations throughout the world, and we must find ways to address that reality and also how it lands back into the United States as well. Highlightrtant to this issue we are dealing with oftentimes has been conflated issues, regardless of the terminology used. Lets use this as a common term at this moment, and those who see this as a large terrorism issue as well. Oftentimes we see individuals who have onedimensional viewpoints on this, and that oftentimes limits individuals perspectives in how we address and find out real and tangible solutions to the response. American muslims in particular are struggling to address this issue as well. Muslims like christians like Jewish Community members have diversity of viewpoints. Community,islamic are not a monolith at all. They are arabs, southeast asians, africanamericans, white converts, and our viewpoints will vary. I will offer some particular programs and efforts that will drive this home in a second. It is important to highlight that this viewpoint, particularly varies, and because there are various vantage wents, it dictates in how find appropriate and effective responses as well. In particular to look at realworld tangible solutions, we have been engaged with, since we started in april, and Practical Solutions in which we can engage with programmatic effort. One of these efforts is a Critical Thinking program which we have been working with in washington now and new york and newhe neapolis should york, and minneapolis should be coming in as well soon. Practical efforts that address their concerns, whether educational efforts, sounded with religiousl based education as well. There are many perspectives out there as well. We engage with efforts in deradicalization as well. Your have been individuals who have been radicalized, and we have worked with them to find appropriate pauses, whether affected by Mental Health who are or individuals dealing with theological challenges in finding ways they can find alternative expressions. Worked withave also and we have assisted with you have probably heard of one of the programs with the new dhs awards. He will be part of this and the d who hasth muhamma been one of the recipients of the cve award as they find ways to combat extremism. To wrapould highlight it up, we will have more time for q a as well, these efforts are a few examples that we are dealing with. They are individuals who are just coming home after being incarcerated for 10, 12, 13 years, and have reached out to do they findr how other ways, whether jobs, employment opportunities, and the challenge is finding resources in place. Oftentimes it is limited money that is not available to us to tackle the heartit inc. Issues, and that means government and communities to work with us as well. The role of monitoring and evaluation. In april of this past year, we know there was this report that came out with gao that talked about finding metrics that are outlace that can help find are we being successful in what we are doing. In this report we saw some of the challenges them straight it challenges that demonstrate effective responses. I will stop right there and i am sure we will have more time for q a. Thank you, muhammad, and seamus. Mr. Hughes my name is seamus , and identity director of the program at George Washington university. We focused our recent work on isis in america. We track all cases of individuals charged with activities in the u. S. Folks as of131 yesterday. There is not a typical profile. My current job is looking at that scope, the threat side of it. I got into extremism about a decade ago. 2008 timeframe. I was a congressional staffer, and my boss task need to figure out what is going on in minneapolis with house of bob alshababs recruitment of men. There is no on the ground, it is freezing cold. I knew a lot of different folks there. And the thing that the find what would be my future career was a meeting with five mothers of individuals rules who had joined out survive out of bob in the base alshabbab. Can you help get them back . Grieving mothers. That is how it friends me. At some point in those five families process, there were individuals who were reachable. Got on the they blink of an there is little the federal government can do. I workedk back, when on extremism, i worked back to that moment, and never wanting to be in an Apartment Building talking to family members with this concern. After i left congress, my bluff was called and said, you think youre so smart on tv, why dont you i did Community Engagement as it relates to radicalization. Going to Community Centers around the country. These are very uncomfortable, awkward, delegate conversations that we did a National Counterterrorism center along with a colleague with having these conversations. ,t was more i am Seamus Hughes im a father, i want to talk about kids that are drawn into this. So framing matters a lot on countering extremism. Behind the 131 folks who have been arrested, there are 131 folks with brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, folks who could be reached. 1 2hat was for about 3 years i would do that. After three girls in denver, jumped on a plane, got turned around in frankfurt, because their father called every phone number in the phone book. I talked about these issues in the mosque and started conversation started a conversation about this. But it wasas incumbent to have a conversation and have these conversations in an open way. That is where i framed how i look at countering extremism, but the national cve strategy can best be defined by a series of fits and starts. In 2009, the Obama Administration announced empowering local partners, which did not have an acronym. There was a long strategy, and the idea was three parts. One, understand the threat. There was an understanding and recognition there have been bad and bigoted and misinformed training, so how do we get this training to state and locals . Engagement at dhs. Part the obama folks would admit they struggle the most with, countering the propaganda the while promoting ideals. Those three strategy objectives framed the way they looked at this. Did, it didstrategy not give a lead or any money behind it. And so you had something called the group of four. Department of homeland security, the fbi, and nctc, coalition of the willing. When i went to denver, it was me and three of my friends working on Community Engagement. There were more folks who died in isis than engage on these issues. That spoke to the priorities that we put on prevention. After recognizing you cannot cover a country with three people, there was an understanding we should focus on three different pilot cities. The first being minneapolis, l. A. , and boston. Minneapolis, each one took a different flavor. Minneapolis was focused more on what they saw was written causes, resiliency issues, much more of a broadbased engagement, and night basket all kinds of things, right . Was focused on Community Engagement, enhancing the engagement they had there. And boston is much more focused on individualized intervention programs. I got a kid i am worried about who talks about how great isis is, how do i reach that kid . So each city took a different flair. Each city did a different flair with no money, so you had a coalition of the willing, department of justice, community partners, ngos trying to do this. Because domestic cve was not defined, it became defined by others. There was an understanding and a growing group of civil rights and Civil Liberties advocates who had serious concerns and legitimate concerns about the implementation of cve, and an administration that do not help to find it in a way that made sense rate cve became the catchall phrase. The cause of and solution to all the worlds problems. It was set up to have an uphill battle. No, recognizing there was lead and no funding, there was again a reset in the last administration to look at let set up a task force at the department of homeland security, lets put all the group of four in that nice fancy office building, and lets get everyone a room and talk about these issues. Threetou had a times increase of staff working on these issues. Congress had gotten into the game and said lets put money on this. And there was a delay in getting the money out the door because for a variety of different reasons. Now flashforwards now, we have a to administration that wants take a positive on this, a strategic pause, take a hard look at it. There are no advocates for cve, so if you are on the right side, you think it is too soft on terror, on the left side, too government overreach, and you have family members grappling with issues with no tools available. This is one of these issues that we cannot figure out how to solve. We have seen and i think we will see in the coming weeks a shift in the new administration, away from broadbased countering extremism programs what they would describe as terrorism prevention programs. I dividuals, radel radicalizing to violence, those folks, as opposed to 300 people in the room talking about terrorism. Each administration will have successes and failures on these issues, especially in an environment that is so publicized, especially on this issue alone. We will see how this goes. Zeros out the Grant Funding for next year. It reduces the number of people at the dhs task force. Cve may not be able to get off the ground as long as it has been around. Two other things i wanted to mention, given things to be concerned about, and muhammad, is right, we track all the cases. The average prison sentence for a got arrested arrested for isolated activities is 14. 3 years, but we have arrested about 500 folks for terrorismrelated activities in the last years. Releasedor so havent from prison, and because terrorism is a form of crime, there will be recidivism. You have individuals who move back into society and move on. I think of a guy interviewed in boston who had a nice i. T. Job and a nice family, and then you have other individuals who are still quite extreme in their beliefs. We have not figured that out as a public puzzle he question. If someone has served their time, do we move on from that, or is there some level of training, monitoring that needs to be approached . The last point in terms of challenges to look at is returning we have been fortson fortunate to have small numbers compared to our European Partners. 131 folks, while unprecedented in the u. S. Context, pales in comparison to my european colleagues fellow countrymen. But there has been a number of individuals who have traveled from here to arak who are getting to iraq youre getting picked up, fleeing to turkey, and were going to have to figure out what is happening with these individuals. In new york there is one on one intervention. In virginia, we are going to send a guy for 330 years for joining isis. Theres no transparency in the system in how we approach this issue. It is something we want to grapple with. With that, i will end my remarks. Thank you, seamus. Thank you both for a fantastic detailed look. I will abuse my position as chair and ask a simple, but tricky question. I wonder if i could get from both of you one practical thing you would like dhs to do that you think cve would improve policy. Despite having spent my career doing broadbased engagement, i will get away from it. I think i did a good job dealing with this issue, but i cannot measure the effectiveness of 200 evil. Im not sure that will not exasperate the issue. I will move away from broadbased engagement toward more oneonone intervention programs, which have a host of civil rights and Civil Liberties cerns, but some of things of these things are solvable. You have to focus your efforts on that. Go back to congress, saying i need x amount of money. Right now we do not have any of that programming. I would secondm that. I travel a lot overseas, and they are struggling to find out appropriate measures. I would advise the persontoperson interaction goes a long way. It is something that i know comes up quite a bit in my experience on the african continent, also in europe, so i would deal with that. Secondly, it is arts and culture. I know it sounds a bit corny, but i think really engaging people to mainstream against extremism is vital. Ist crosses into line of this what government should be doing or not. But having the Human Experience resonates. Popculture resonates. Appropriateo find ways to balance that out, and the jury will be out on how that is to be done. But we can certainly work with them. Cox thank you. I will open it up to the floor now. If you have questions, not comments, that would be drug. If you could give your name and affiliation, that would be terribly helpful. I have a question in the front row, and then i will go to the gentleman behind them. Hi. I advise the British Government on their counter extremism policy. A practical one, framing,e issue of definition matters. Is there any way you stood on the name countering violent extremism . In britain we change our branding to be looking at extremism. I wonder how you stood on that. Im a journalist. I have one question about the prisons in the United States. Some former or current extremists, and some reports recruiting terrorists. Can you comment on that . Cox so we have the name and britons. Mr. Hughes in terms of prison radicalization, i have a colleague that sums it up. So we have cases of individuals radicalized to v