Years after the Department of Homeland Security implemented an "equity" lens in its efforts to combat terrorism and overhaul border security, experts are now warning that the nation faces increasing threat levels from radical Islamic terror groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), under President Biden's day-one racial equity executive order, identified key programs to advance racial equity in its methods of combating terrorism.
In 2021, DHS launched a new initiative to "advanc[e] equity at DHS," which affected how the agency allocated counterterrorism resources.
The equity plan said it would "augment efforts to equitably provide communities with the tools and resources they need to prevent… terrorism."
DHS's equity plan also promised to lay more groundwork for "a whole-of-society approach to preventing terrorism and targeted violence." This included avoiding being offensive about its methods.
"Moving away from previous ‘countering violent extremism’ approaches that targeted specific communities," the department's plan said.
DHS's equity plan also affected airports, with policies aimed at reforming the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The equity plan identified "barriers to equitable outcomes" at the TSA, and proposed new training to ensure inequity was reduced.
"Members of the public, especially those from underserved communities, continue to report concerns regarding racial and ethnic profiling during the screening process at airport screening checkpoints," the DHS plan said. "TSA will develop additional scenario-based trainings for areas of concern for racial and religious minorities."
A former national security advisor to former President Trump, Victoria Coates, called the agenda "disastrous" for national security.
"[DEI] should be eradicated as something that is being promoted by the terrorists," Coates, who now serves as the vice president at the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation added. "This is literally a road to anarchy."
In 2021, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued "Guidelines for the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Law," which specified that border security deportations must ensure they do not "exercise our discretionary authority" in a way that causes "inequitable outcomes."
Since then, Border Patrol encounters have skyrocketed. Border Patrol had 1 million encounters in 2021, which then jumped to 3.3 million in 2023. The current stat for 2024 is 2.5 million encounters, which does not account for the number of illegal aliens who penetrated the border without detection or arrest.
Terrorists have been capitalizing on the opportunity posed by the more porous Southern Border.
In June, eight Tajikistan nationals with ties to ISIS were apprehended by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The arrests followed a report that thousands of "Special Interest Aliens" from the Middle East, including those from regions associated with potential national security risks like terrorism, have been arrested by Border Patrol agents.
Furthermore, nearly 100 illegal immigrants on the terror watch list have been released into the United States during the Biden administration, it was reported in August.
The Biden administration has, however, deemed domestic terrorists an increased priority from the start of his taking office, citing the government's role to root out "racism" and advance "equity."
"We are, therefore, prioritizing efforts to ensure that every component of the government has a role to play in rooting out racism and advancing equity for underserved communities that have far too often been the targets of discrimination and violence. This approach must apply to our efforts to counter domestic terrorism by addressing underlying racism and bigotry," the administration said in a 2021 memo.
Bill Roggio, a foreign terror expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, called the focus on domestic terrorists "overhyped" in comparison to the threat level from Iran-backed terror groups and other foreign terrorist organizations in an interview with Fox News Digital.
"I do you think the greatest threat at the moment is actually Islamic State," he said. "The threat of an attack here in the United States is indeed greater today than it was during the Trump administration."
"I have little doubt that terrorists are taking advantage of our porous border," the expert from FDD continued. "I think it's just a matter of time before something really bad happens."
This assessment was reflected in FBI Director Christopher Wray's April testimony, in which he said there was increasing "potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland, akin to the ISIS-K attack we saw at the Russia concert hall."
The terrorist attack on Moscow's Crocus City concert hall was the worst attack in Russia in over 20 years, leaving 137 people dead and over 180 wounded.
"Looking back over my career in law enforcement, I’d be hard-pressed to think of a time where so many threats to our public safety and national security were so elevated all at once," Wray said.
"You've recently testified that threats, 'have gone to another level' and foreign terrorists, including ISIS and al-Qaida, have renewed calls for attacks here in the U.S. — can you expand on that?" the FBI director was asked by Rep. Hal Rogers.
"These are terrorist orgs that don't typically see eye to eye, but they seem to be pretty united in calling for one thing: calling for attacks on us," Wray responded.
Fox News Digital contacted DHS, Border Patrol and TSA for comment.
The mandate from the Biden-Harris White House affected other agencies relevant to national security by inserting a radical brand of DEI. For example, the Department of Defense (DoD) hired a DEI officer who expressed sentiment hostile to White people, a State Department equity hire called America a "failed historic model," the DoD's second-in-command claimed policies aimed at "nonbinary" identities are essential to military readiness, and a recent Department of Energy hire called for "queering nuclear weapons."
Fox News' Adam Shaw and Chris Massaro contributed to this report.
