A Republican lawmaker revealed for the first time Wednesday that there is a quasi-list of suspected clients of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein that can be compiled from a series of witness statements and other evidence gathered by the FBI.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) told the House Judiciary Committee that he thinks the FBI has the names of at least 20 people tied to Epstein, including prominent figures in the music industry, finance, politics and banking.
Massie’s statement comes as FBI Director Kash Patel testified under oath before Congress over two days of contentious hearings, during which he continued to insist that there is no “client list” and no credible evidence that Epstein trafficked underage girls to anyone other than himself.
But Massie cited files used by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York which summarize interviews with witnesses and suspects.
The lawmaker claimed those files include “one Hollywood producer worth a few 100 million dollars, one royal prince, one high-profile individual in the music industry, one very prominent banker, one high profile government official, one high profile former politician, one owner of a car company in Italy, one rock star, one magician, at least six billionaires, including a billionaire from Canada. We know these people exist in the FBI files, the files that you control.”
Patel said he asked FBI agents to review the existing files and added “any investigations that arise from any credible investigation will be brought. There have been no new materials brought to me.”
On Tuesday, Patel blamed former Miami federal prosecutor Alexander Acosta for what he called the “Original Sin” — explaining that the decision to give federal immunity to Epstein in 2008 has hampered almost every effort by the FBI and Justice Department to hold those involved in Epstein’s criminal operation accountable.
Patel, a podcaster who once called for the release of the files and helped propagate conspiracy theories about why they weren’t being made public, testified just days before Acosta is set to finally tell his side of the story before a congressional committee. On Friday, Acosta will be grilled by the House Oversight Committee in closed-door testimony for the first time since he resigned as U.S. labor secretary amid renewed scrutiny of the case.
Acosta was just 37 and a rising star in the Republican Party who had noble ambitions of becoming a U.S. Supreme Court justice when he was namedU.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida in 2005. By the time he was sworn in, the FBI was already investigating Epstein, and evidence suggested that the crimes against children and young women he committed in Palm Beach went well beyond Florida.
Now 56, Acosta has almost vanished from public life, other than appearing from time to time to discuss economic issues on the conservative TV network Newsmax, where he is also on the network’s board of directors and chair of its audit committee. The Miami Herald was unsuccessful in obtaining a comment from Newsmax, which in recent months has portrayed Acosta as a victim of the “deep state,” suggesting that Epstein and Maxwell were unfairly targeted.
Acosta still owns a $2.6 million mansion in McLean, Virginia, which he and his wife bought after being named labor secretary by President Donald Trump in 2017. Nowadays, he advises private market ventures and serves as a public speaker, according to his Newsmax bio.
A first-generation Cuban American, Acosta skipped his senior year of high school to enter Harvard a year early. Upon graduation in 1994, he worked as a law clerk for future Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito, who was then a federal appeals court judge. Acosta then took a job with the prestigious law firm Kirkland and Ellis in Washington and became a member of the Federalist Society, a conservative organization that has influenced the appointment of judges, including members of the Supreme Court.
Acosta was appointed in 2001 under the George W. Bush administration as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s civil rights division, and also served on the National Labor Relations Board before being appointed U.S. Attorney in Miami.
Acosta has rarely spoken about the Epstein case. To this day, he has stood firm on his decision to give Epstein a plea deal, arguing in the past that the evidence wasn’t strong enough to prosecute him on serious sex trafficking charges.
But an investigation, completed in 2020 by the Justice Department, concluded that Acosta had used “poor judgement” in resolving the case with such a lenient plea deal — one that not only gave Epstein immunity from federal charges, but also gave immunity to four co-conspirators and an unidentified number of others who were involved. Under the deal, Epstein pleaded guilty in state court to solicitation of prostitution and solicitation of a minor under 18. He was sentenced to 18 months in the county jail, but served 13 — most of it under a “work release” program which enabled him to leave prison during the day. (It was later revealed that he continued to sexually abused young women in his Palm Beach “office” while he was an inmate).
Acosta has also blamed the Palm Beach state attorney, Barry Krischer — specifically his decision early on to pursue only a misdemeanor charge and a fine against Epstein, which complicated any future federal prosecution.
Krischer called Acosta’s reasoning an attempt to “rewrite history.”
“No matter how my office resolved the state charges, the U.S. Attorney always had the ability to file his own criminal charges,” Krischer said in a statement at the time of Acosta’s resignation.
The lead line prosecutor who handled the case in Florida, Marie Villafaña, told federal investigators in 2019 that she had drawn up a 53-page draft indictment in 2007 against Epstein accusing him of sex trafficking minors while running a systemic operation using others to recruit girls. If convicted, Epstein may have served life in prison. Villafaña, who has never spoken publicly and has since resigned, told investigators she pleaded with her bosses to prosecute him — to no avail.
The DOJ’s investigation into Epstein’s plea deal also hit several roadblocks, among them: the discovery that 11 months’ worth of Acosta’s emails during the negotiations had vanished. Federal investigators blamed the gap – from May 2007 to April 2008 – on a technical glitch that they said wasn’t isolated to Acosta and had affected other federal email accounts.
The missing emails included the months and days leading up to and following October 12, 2007, when Acosta had a private breakfast meeting in Palm Beachwith Epstein’s lawyer, Jay Lefkowitz, a former Kirkland and Ellis law colleague.
The Miami Herald, in its 2018 investigation of the case, uncovered evidence suggesting that Epstein and his battery of high-priced attorneys exerted undue influence over both state and federal prosecutors. Among other lawyers hired by Epstein: former Clinton special prosecutor and Kirkland and Ellis lawyer Kenneth Starr; lawyer and friend Alan Dershowitz (who was later accused by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre of sexual abuse, though she later recanted); and Miami lawyer Lilly Anne Sanchez, who, according to the DOJ probe, had dated one of the federal prosecutors on the Epstein case, Matthew Menchel.
Emails between Epstein’s lawyers and federal prosecutors obtained by the Herald showed that Epstein’s lawyers repeatedly made demands and that federal prosecutors acquiesced each step of the way.
“Thank you for the commitment you made to me during our Oct. 12 meeting,’’ Lefkowitz wrote in a letter to Acosta after their breakfast meeting in Palm Beach. He added that he was hopeful that Acosta would abide by a promise to keep the deal confidential. By law, prosecutors were required to notify Epstein’s victims in advance of any plea agreement.
“The original sin in the Epstein case was the way it was initially brought by Mr. Acosta,” Patel told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“Mr. Acosta allowed Epstein to enter — in 2008 — to plea to a non-prosecution agreement which then the courts issued mandates and protective orders legally prohibiting anyone from ever seeing that material ever again without the permission of the court. The non-prosecution also barred future prosecutions of those involved at that time.”
A judge later ruled that the Epstein deal was illegal, but the courts ultimately ruled that it was too late to undo it.
Still, the deal’s provisions did not stop the then-U.S. attorney in New York, Geoffrey Berman, from bringing new charges against Epstein in 2019 in the wake of the Herald’s series. Epstein, 66, was arrested on July 6, 2019 on federal charges of sex trafficking minors. A month later, Epstein was found hanging in his cell. The medical examiner in New York ruled his death a suicide, although Epstein’s brother, a private forensic pathologist he hired and Epstein’s lawyers have said they don’t believe Epstein killed himself.
Prosecutors did arrest Epstein’s former girlfriend, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted on sex trafficking charges in 2021 and is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence. She is appealing her conviction to the Supreme Court, and part of her argument is that she is covered by the immunity clause in the 2008 agreement, even though she was not named.
Former attorney general William Barr testified for the Oversight Committee under a subpoena last month that he was confident Epstein’s death was a suicide. He also disputed rumors that Epstein had any ties to intelligence agencies.
Barr, who worked for the CIA while in law school in the 1970s, said the notion that Epstein was working for intelligence was “dubious.”
“Many American businessmen who have foreign contacts sometimes will talk to intelligence agencies and provide information to them,” Barr said. “And the CIA has a unit that goes around and talks to people who are well-connected and asks them questions.”
GOP lawmaker makes blockbuster claim: FBI has at least 20 names of suspected Epstein clients
“We know these people exist in the FBI files, the files that you control.”
In the 2024 election, the fact that Donald Trump’s hardcore MAGA base aggressively supported him came as no surprise. But it was independents and swing voters who ultimately got Trump past the finish line and gave him a narrow victory in a close election.
Trump won the popular vote for the first time in 2024, defeating Democratic nominee Kamala Harris by roughly 1.5 percent — and the economy, according to polls, played a key role in that victory. Although the United States enjoyed record-low unemployment during Joe Biden’s presidency, frustration over inflation worked to Trump’s advantage.
But The New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie, in his September 17 column, argues that Trump sold U.S. voters a “fantasy” that is now unravelling.
Trump, according to Bouie, told 2024 voters that “that there were no trade-offs” with the economy — and that Americans “could have their cake and eat it, too” when, “in reality,” it “was a binary choice.”
“The essence of President Trump’s pitch to the American people last year was simple: They could have it both ways,” Bouie explains. “They could have a powerful, revitalized economy and ‘mass deportations now.’ They could build new factories and take manufacturing jobs back from foreign competitors as well as expel every person who, in their view, didn’t belong in the United States. They could live in a ‘golden age’ of plenty — and seal it away from others outside the country with a closed, hardened border.”
One “binary choice,” according to Bouie, was that “Americans could have a strong, growing economy, which requires immigration to bring in new people and fill demand for labor, or they could finance a deportation force and close the border to everyone but a small, select few.”
“Millions of Americans embraced the fantasy,” Bouie laments. “Now, about eight months into Trump’s second term, the reality of the situation is inescapable. As promised, Trump launched a campaign of mass deportation. Our cities are crawling with masked federal agents, snatching anyone who looks ‘illegal’ to them — a bit of racial profiling that has, for now, been sanctioned by the Supreme Court. The jobs, however, haven’t arrived.”
The New York Times columnist continues, “There are fewer manufacturing jobs than there were in 2024, thanks in part to the president’s tariffs and, well, his immigration policies…. To embrace nativism in a global, connected economic world is to sacrifice prosperity for the sake of exclusion, just as the main effect of racial segregation in the American South was to leave the region impoverished and underdeveloped.”
Trump sold Americans a ‘fantasy’ — and it’s now unraveling
First Son Eric Trump’s false claim that political violence is exclusively carried out by the American left prompted Emmy-winning journalist David Shuster to declare that President Donald Trump’s second-oldest son was the “undisputed idiot king” and “a grotesque epitome of stupidity so profound he renders the rest of his family — already a display of moral and cognitive deformities that would confound Sigmund Freud — almost respectable by comparison.”
“The bullets are only flying one way,” Eric Trump told podcast host Will Cain. “Listen, there’s fringe on both sides, 100%, but like, I don’t know … These people have tried to do everything they could to take us out of the game.”
In a Tuesday post to his Substack, Shuster — who is a veteran of NBC, CNN and Fox News — called Eric “the dumbest Trump, which is saying something.” He went on to say that Trump’s adult son saying that the left was the only side carrying political violence was “the intellectual equivalent of spraying manure in your own eyes while insisting it is perfume.”
“In this single sentence, Eric demonstrated the mental agility of a cornered sloth,” Shuster wrote. “And the selective memory of a dung beetle rolling it’s own feculent ball across the lawn of public discourse.”
Shuster pointed out that Eric Trump glossed over high-profile recent instances of right-wing violence, like the June murder of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman (D) and her husband Mark — in which the alleged killer also wounded Democratic state senator Jon Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. Shuster also reminded his readers that a man angry about vaccines fired on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, and killed the police officer who confronted him. The former MSNBC host also didn’t hold back in criticizing Eric Trump from using Kirk’s murder to promote his new book.
“Eric was baffled when critics said the pledge looked opportunistic. Maybe the word itself baffled Eric since ‘opportunistic’ has five syllables,” Shuster wrote. “…He is the family’s apex of ignorance. The pinnacle of self-important incompetence. The organism whose very existence makes the rest of the Trump clan’s failings appear almost tolerable.”
‘Undisputed idiot king’: Former NBC journalist calls Eric Trump ‘the epitome of stupidity’
The Guardian reports prominent conservatives are attacking U.S. Attorney General Pam [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi for pledging to “absolutely target” people who use “hate speech” in the wake of the killing of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk.
[“Bimbo #3”] Bondi declared on a podcast hosted by Katie Miller, the wife of the right-wing White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, that there is “free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society”.
The U.S. attorney also went so far as to threaten to prosecute an Office Depot employee who allegedly refused to print flyers for a vigil for Kirk.
But legal experts and conservative pundits are condemning the comments because there is no “hate speech” exception in the First Amendment right to speech, so targeting people for frank or even hurtful comments is unconstitutional.
“Get rid of her. Today. This is insane. Conservatives have fought for decades for the right to refuse service to anyone. We won that fight. Now Pam [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi wants to roll it all back for no reason,” said conservative pundit Matt Walshposting on X
Conservative commentator Erick Erickson, also writing on X, said: “Our Attorney General is apparently a moron. ‘There’s free speech and then there is hate speech.’ No ma’am. That is not the law.”
Savanah Hernandez, a commentator with Turning Point, described [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi’s statement as the “most destructive phrase that has ever been uttered … She needs to be removed as attorney general now.”
Heidi Kitrosser, a Northwestern University law professor, told the Guardian that [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi’s talk of targeting people who use “hate speech” is not legal because the “first amendment creates very, very strong protections from punishment for speech that’s offensive or for speech with which people disagree.”
“The bar for punishing speech based on content, and especially based on viewpoint, is extremely, extremely high,” Kitrosser said.
What else would you expect from a brainless bimbo?
‘This is insane’: Conservatives demand Trump official’s removal over ‘hate speech’ blunder
“Instead of targeting Rep. Omar, Republican and Democratic leaders should consider holding accountable bigots like Rep. Randy Fine and Rep. Brian Mast, and even Rep. Mace herself – who in recent days said Rep. Omar should go back to Somalia and told a Jewish colleague they should see a plastic surgeon for their nose,” the statement read.
An effort by Rep. Nancy Mace (R‑S.C.) to censure Rep. Ilhan Omar (D‑Minn.) failed in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday night.
The resolution, which was introduced in response to Omar reposting a video and making remarks related to right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s murder last week, was tabled by a vote of 214‑213. Four Republicans joined all Democrats in opposing the resolution.
The Republicans who opposed the resolution were Reps. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), Jeff Hurd (R-Colo.), Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) and Mike Flood (R-Neb.)
If passed, the resolution would have formally censured Omar and removed her from some committee assignments.
Following the failure of her censure motion, Mace took to social media to attack her Republican colleagues who opposed the move.
In a series of post on the social platform X, she wrote: “4 Republicans sold out tonight. They sided with Democrats to protect Ilhan Omar. A woman who mocked the assassination of an innocent American husband and father.”
She added: “In 210 Democrats and 4 Republicans (Mike Flood, Jeff Hurd, Tom McClintock, and Cory Mills) just sided with Ilhan Omar over Charlie Kirk. They voted to shield a woman who mocked the cold-blooded assassination of Charlie Kirk… A woman who belittled his grieving family…”
“They showed us exactly who they are. Never forget it,” Mace wrote.
Meanwhile, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S., welcomed the development.
In a statement released to media, it declared the outcome “a victory against racism and political repression,” but added that “the fight is not over.”
“Rep. Mace and her allies may seek to bring the measure back to the floor in the future. Earlier today, CAIR sent a formal letter to all members of the House urging them to oppose the resolution, which falsely accused Rep. Omar of celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk – despite her repeatedly condemning his murder and offering sympathy to his family,” CAIR stated.
“Instead of targeting Rep. Omar, Republican and Democratic leaders should consider holding accountable bigots like Rep. Randy Fine and Rep. Brian Mast, and even Rep. Mace herself – who in recent days said Rep. Omar should go back to Somalia and told a Jewish colleague they should see a plastic surgeon for their nose,” the statement read.
‘Sided with Democrats’: Nancy Mace melts down at 4 Republicans who sank her censure motion
The Department of Homeland Security lashed out at an American citizen on Wednesday for speaking out about being wrongfully detained during a recent immigration operation.
George Retes, 25, is a U.S. citizen and military veteran who was arrested by federal agents in July as part of an immigration raid on a cannabis farm in Ventura County, California. Retes claimed in an op-ed published by the San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday that he was “wrongfully arrested” and that agents “didn’t care” that they were potentially breaking the law during the raid.
Retes also accused officers of racial profiling.
DHS responded to his claims from the agency’s official X account.
“We do our due diligence,” the post reads. “We know who we are targeting ahead of time. These types of smears are designed to demonize and villainize our brave ICE law enforcement. This kind of garbage has led to a more than 1000% increase in the assaults on enforcement officers.”
Mostly well-deserved assaults given ICE’s typical abusive behavior. Respect is earned, not accorded on demand.
DHS also gave its account of Retes’ arrest. The agency claimed he “assaulted” officers because he “refused to move his vehicle out of the road.”
Dumb f*ck*ng ICE idiots have no idea as to what an “assault” is. Fake charges, par for the course with ICE.
As CBP and ICE agents were executing criminal search warrants on July 10 at the marijuana sites in Camarillo, CA, George Retes—a U.S. citizen—became violent and refused to comply with law enforcement,” the post reads. “He challenged agents and blocked their route by refusing to move his vehicle out of the road. CBP arrested Retes for assault.”
‘Garbage!’ DHS lashes out at US citizen for speaking out after wrongful arrest
After three decades in California, Narciso Barranco was arrested by agents while weeding outside an IHOP, stirring outrage and a fight to stop his deportation.
Before dawn on June 21, Narciso Barranco loaded his weed trimmer, lawn mower and leaf blower into his white F-150 pickup. He had three IHOP restaurants to landscape and then seven homes. His goal was to finish in time to cook dinner with his wife, Martha Hernandez.
It was a cool Saturday morning in Tustin, Calif., about 35 miles south of Los Angeles. After wrapping up work at the first IHOP, Mr. Barranco stopped to buy a wheel of fresh white cheese. He returned home and left it on the kitchen counter for Ms. Hernandez before driving seven minutes to an IHOP in Santa Ana.
He paid no attention to the Home Depot across the parking lot. Later, he would wish he had been more aware.
Migrants for decades have gathered outside the big-box stores, hoping a contractor or homeowner might offer a day’s work. But under President Trump’s immigration crackdown, Home Depot has become a prime target for federal agents under pressure to round up undocumented people like Mr. Barranco, who slipped across the border from Mexico more than 30 years ago.
Mr. Barranco, 48, was weeding between bushes when men in masks descended on him. He raised the head of his weed trimmer as he retreated. The authorities would say they believed he was attacking them; Mr. Barranco’s family said he was scared and just trying to move away, not to harm anyone. But in a tweet, the Department of Homeland Security would cite that moment to justify what happened next.
Mr. Barranco’s memory of his arrest is fragmented: the blinding sting of pepper spray; beefy federal agents taking him down and pinning him to the pavement; their relentless blows; the pain radiating from his left shoulder.
He didn’t dispute that he was in the country unlawfully. Still, he pleaded his case to the agents as they wrenched his arms behind his back.
“I have three boys in the Marines,” he recalled blurting out in English.
Surely that would count for something?
Who Should Be Deported?
Mr. Trump’s mass deportation project is forcing many Americans to confront the question of what kind of country they want.
According to polls, Americans strongly agree that immigrants without legal status should be deported if they have been convicted of a violent crime. But support for Mr. Trump’s immigration sweeps begins to erode when people are asked about the much larger group of undocumented immigrants with no police record who have worked and raised families in the United States.
The arrest of Mr. Barranco, a Latino man doing a job that many other Latinos in California do, quickly became a rallying point for those who believe enforcement actions have gone too far. A slight man with a reserved demeanor, Mr. Barranco had built a life in the shadows, tending the lawns and flower beds of Southern California’s suburban homes and commercial properties. He had no criminal record.
All three of his sons are United States citizens, having been born in California. Alejandro, 25, was a combat engineer who deployed to Afghanistan to assist with the U.S. withdrawal. Jose Luis, 23, was released from military duty last month and plans to study nursing. Emanuel, 21, is still in the Marines, based in San Diego. The sons could have sponsored him for a green card but were discouraged by the time it would take and the thousands of dollars it would cost.
Ms. Hernandez, Mr. Barranco’s wife and the stepmother of the three young men, is also an American citizen.
Walter Salaverria, the IHOP operations director who hired Mr. Barranco, described him as “humble, hardworking, not just about the money.”
He added, “If I had 50 restaurants, I would give them to him.”
For years, many Americans have relied on immigrants to do the jobs they avoided — cleaning, building, picking fruits and vegetables, manicuring lawns and gardens. Under previous Republican and Democratic administrations, undocumented people who worked hard and stayed out of trouble could largely expect to be left alone.
Now that masked federal agents are pepper spraying these people and tackling them in the streets, some Americans are thinking of them differently — or perhaps thinking of them for the first time.
A Tearful Voice Mail
After the agents subdued Mr. Barranco, they shoved him, hands shackled behind his back, into an unmarked vehicle. He was soon transferred to a van with another immigrant who said he had been snatched as he left the Home Depot.
Mr. Barranco said an agent flung water on his bloody face and head. He said he pleaded with the agent to tie his hands in front of him because his shoulder hurt. “I was crying,” he recalled. “I said, ‘I won’t run. Just tie my hands in front; I can’t stand the pain.’”
By nightfall, he was crammed into a constantly lit basement in downtown Los Angeles with 70 other men. The air was thick with stench and despair. There was one exposed toilet. Some men slept standing, he said.
Mr. Barranco left a tearful voice mail message for Alejandro, informing him that he had been arrested and didn’t know where he was being held. His wallet and cellphone were still inside his truck outside the IHOP. Could someone retrieve them?
Two days later, after locating his father, Alejandro drove to Los Angeles and waited nearly four hours to see him, only to be turned away, like dozens of others, when visitation hours ended.
When Alejandro finally laid eyes on his father the next day, Mr. Barranco was disheveled and dirty, still in the same long-sleeve shirt and jeans he was wearing when he was arrested. Father and son met across a glass partition.
“My father looked defeated,” recalled Alejandro, who kept his composure as he tried to assure his father that the family was “taking care of everything.”
Sergio Perez, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, had agreed to escort Alejandro and was allowed to meet Mr. Barranco without a barrier. Mr. Perez asked Mr. Barranco if he could hug him since his son could not.
“No,” replied Mr. Barranco. “I smell so badly. I haven’t been able to shower.” The lawyer embraced him anyway. Mr. Barranco wept.
The next day, Mr. Barranco was transferred to a privately run detention center in the high desert, about two hours away.
A New Country
Mr. Barranco was born in a village in Mexico, one of five children of campesinos who subsisted on the maize, beans, squash and tomatoes that they grew.
In 1994, he trekked through the desert to the border and sneaked undetected into Arizona. He made his way to California and began taking whatever work there was, in construction, restaurants, landscaping.
“I planned to save and return to Mexico,” Mr. Barranco said.
He married, and three boys came along, the first in 1999.
“I decided that if I took my kids to Mexico, they’d end up like me,” he said. “I thought, Here, I can work and ensure they have a better life.”
By 2002, Mr. Barranco had landed a job with a large landscaping company that offered benefits like health insurance. He began filing taxes.
The company trained him to properly prune trees, among other skills, and he became certified as an irrigation technician working on sprinkler systems. He was sometimes dispatched to Disneyland late at night to trim hedges. He later struck out on his own and built his client roster.
As his boys moved through elementary and middle school, Mr. Barranco, who only has a few years of formal education, took parenting workshops to support their success. In 2012, he received a Certificate of Congressional Recognition for his “faithful commitment and hard work” on behalf of his children’s education. That same year, after completing a nine-week “parental involvement program,” he earned a certificate guaranteeing that his sons would be admitted to any California state college after high school.
“Any opportunity to do something good to help them, I tried to take advantage,” he said.
Mr. Barranco and his first wife divorced in 2015. A few years later, he met Ms. Hernandez, then 58, at a Public Storage facility in Santa Ana where he kept some of his tools. He helped her haul a bed that she had kept there, and he gave her his number. Two weeks later, he helped her move more furniture and then called to check in on her. A friendship flourished.
“I was lonely, he was lonely,” said Ms. Hernandez, a widow whose children were grown. “We enjoyed each other’s company.”
On Mother’s Day in 2021, he joined her family for brunch. Mr. Barranco’s shrimp ceviche was a hit with her two sons and her parents. So was he.
“He was quiet at first,” her oldest son, Rigo Hernandez, now 40, recalled, “but there was a warmth about him that spoke louder than words.”
On Feb. 18, 2023, with the Pacific Ocean as their backdrop, they were married in a small ceremony officiated by Mr. Hernandez.
By then, all three of Mr. Barranco’s sons were in the Marine Corps.
“My father brought us up to respect this country and to appreciate the opportunities we would have,” Alejandro said.
‘I Never Thought This Could Happen’
Footage taken by bystanders of Mr. Barranco’s arrest went viral. The videos show several agents standing above him while others hold him down. One agent, kneeling at his side, strikes Mr. Barranco repeatedly in the head, neck and left shoulder as he groans. The agents force him into an S.U.V. with the aid of a metal rod.
The Department of Homeland Security posted a seven-second video of Mr. Barranco wielding the weed trimmer as agents pepper sprayed him. “Perhaps the mainstream media would like our officers to stand there and be mowed down instead of defending themselves?” Tricia McLaughlin, a department spokeswoman, wrote on X. The agency did not respond to a request for any additional comment beyond the post on X.
When Alejandro saw the videos, he flung his cellphone in anger.
The family gathered to make a plan. Alejandro, the only son released from active duty at the time, would take the lead in speaking out. Mr. Hernandez, Ms. Hernandez’s son, would contact federal and state lawmakers.
The family started a GoFundMe to raise money for a lawyer. The page featured photographs of the Barranco boys in uniform. In one image, Mr. Barranco is at a memorial service to fallen soldiers.
Alejandro began fielding news media requests. He tried to be measured in his comments. He said his father was a productive member of the community who hadn’t hurt anyone. The use of force by agents was excessive, unjustified and unprofessional, he said.
He said he felt betrayed by the country that he and his brothers loved and were willing to die for.
“There are many people in the military with immigrant parents like my dad,” Jose Luis said. “I never thought this could happen to him.”
The brothers expressed regret that they hadn’t managed to sponsor their father for a green card, which they were eligible to do as Americans and as servicemen.
“We saw a lawyer who wanted $5,000 just to start the process,” Alejandro recalled. He added, “Everyone was so busy in the military.”
Camaraderie Among Detainees
Mr. Barranco recalls being transported to the immigration detention center in Adelanto, Calif., with an Asian man, an African man and a fellow Latino. They arrived at the lockup, which can hold nearly 2,000 immigrants, before sunrise and waited all day to be processed.
In a barrackslike pod, he was assigned to I-33 “low,” the bottom bed of a metal-framed bunk. He received three blue shirts, two pairs of pants and one pair of underwear. His neighbor, in bunk I-32 low, eventually gave him an extra pair.
He counted 172 men in the room.
“I befriended several people,” Mr. Barranco said, producing a list with the names and cellphone numbers of eight detainees.
Mr. Barranco’s family deposited money into his account so he could make phone calls and buy items like chips, coffee and instant noodles to supplement the unappetizing institutional food, he said.
He shared both his phone and his commissary credit with detainees whose families did not know their whereabouts or who could not afford the expensive calls and items. One was an Iranian man whose wife was about to give birth.
One day, Mr. Barranco bought 10 packets of noodle soup mix and distributed them. Someone handed him a pencil. It gave him an outlet for his anguish, he said.
He began to scrawl on scraps of paper he found. Prayers. Feelings. Names.
A Path to Freedom
Mr. Barranco had no idea that his arrest had prompted protests and galvanized volunteers across Orange County.
Strangers delivered food, flowers and messages of support to his home.
Six days after his arrest, the Orange County Rapid Response Network, in coordination with his family, held a candlelight vigil and a peaceful march to honor Mr. Barranco and denounce indiscriminate immigration sweeps. Thousands of dollars flowed into the GoFundMe, enough to hire Lisa Ramirez, an immigration lawyer, to seek Mr. Barranco’s release, fight his deportation case and help him gain legal status in the United States.
Given that he is a father to a veteran, “Narciso could have been an American citizen by now,” Ms. Ramirez said.
Ms. Ramirez submitted a request to the government for “parole in place,” a program that allows undocumented parents of U.S. military members to remain lawfully in the country and work while they await approval for permanent residency.
Mr. Barranco’s wife, Ms. Hernandez, a U.S. citizen, offered another path, but one that would have required him to return to Mexico to complete the process. He would be separated from his family, likely for years, with no assurance he would be allowed to return.
Ms. Ramirez filed a motion for a bond hearing in immigration court. It included the birth certificates of his sons and proof of their military service, as well as the accolades from the school district and Congress for his parental involvement and other evidence of his good moral character.
Mr. Barranco had his hearing after 19 days in lockup. The government asked the judge to hold him without bond, as is common. Ms. Ramirez asked the judge to release him on the minimum bond of $1,500, arguing that he had three U.S.-born military sons and was not a flight risk.
The prosecutor requested a $13,000 bond. The judge set it at $3,000.
After his release five days later, Mr. Barranco stopped at an In-N-Out for a cheeseburger combo and vanilla shake.
Mr. Barranco made public remarks a few days after that at a news conference in downtown Santa Ana.
“To the community, I don’t have the words to truly express what I feel in my heart,” he said in Spanish, choking up. “So I can just say thank you for standing with my family and my children, for being by their side.” He also shared a message of hope for families of detainees.
A Working Man on Pause
Since his release, Mr. Barranco has mostly stayed home, venturing out on Sundays for church. Alejandro and Jose Luis, two of his sons, are covering his jobs.
He is alone while Ms. Hernandez is at work much of the day. His companions are Revoltosa, a cockatoo who has a predilection for perching on his right shoulder, and Snoopy, his small, fluffy white dog.
“They relieve my stress,” he said.
At 8 a.m. each day, he logs into a two-hour online English class. The ankle monitor he was fitted with before leaving Adelanto has since been removed. But three times a week, he must check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
At 11:10 a.m. on a recent Thursday, during an interview for this article, his phone buzzed. His expression tensed as he entered a code and took a selfie, part of the monitoring protocol. Agents have also shown up at his door without notice.
He spends time in the garden, caring for his heirloom tomatoes, squash, peppers and cucumbers. A guava tree has recently taken root. He also tends the geraniums, jasmine and day lilies. In the kitchen, he puts his culinary talents to work preparing carne asada, ceviche and other dishes.
Mr. Barranco has also been keeping a journal. During an interview, he opened to the first page and read aloud. “At 4 a.m. on a Saturday, the routine of a poor gardener began. Then … ” His voice faltered and his face crumpled.
He tried to continue.
“Something happened that never could have been expected,” he said and then slammed the journal shut. “I can’t,” he said.
As of Tuesday, his lawyer had yet to receive acknowledgment from the government that his application for parole in place was under review.
He Raised Three Marines. His Wife Is American. The U.S. Wants to Deport Him.
After three decades in California, Narciso Barranco was arrested by agents while weeding outside an IHOP, stirring outrage and a fight to stop his deportation.
Militant, nationalistic, white supremacist violent extremism has increased in the United States. In fact, the number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism.
This is the complete text of a Department of Justice study regarding right-wing extremism that the Trump administration has tried to remove from the Internet.
Militant, nationalistic, white supremacist violent extremism has increased in the United States. In fact, the number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism. Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives.[1] In this same period, far-left extremists committed 42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives.[2] A recent threat assessment by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security concluded that domestic violent extremists are an acute threat and highlighted a probability that COVID-19 pandemic-related stressors, long-standing ideological grievances related to immigration, and narratives surrounding electoral fraud will continue to serve as a justification for violent actions.[3]
Over the past 20 years, the body of research that examines terrorism and domestic violent extremism has grown exponentially. Studies have looked at the similarities and differences between radicalization to violent domestic ideologies and radicalization to foreign extremist ideologies. Research has found that radicalization processes and outcomes — and perhaps potential prevention and intervention points — vary by group structure and crime type. In addition, research has explored promising and effective approaches for how communities can respond to radicalization and prevent future attacks.[4]
The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) has played a unique role in the evolving literature on terrorism and violent extremism. NIJ has promoted the development of comprehensive terrorism databases to help inform criminal justice responses to terrorism, address the risk of terrorism to potential targets, examine the links between terrorism and other crimes, and study the organizational, structural, and cultural dynamics of terrorism. In 2012, the U.S. Congress requested that NIJ build on these focal points by funding “research targeted toward developing a better understanding of the domestic radicalization phenomenon and advancing evidence-based strategies for effective intervention and prevention.”[5] NIJ has since funded more than 50 research projects on domestic radicalization, which have led to a better understanding of the processes that result in violent action, factors that increase the risk of radicalizing to violence, and how best to prevent and respond to violent extremism.
This article discusses the findings of several NIJ-supported domestic radicalization studies that cover a range of individual and network-centered risk and protective factors that affect radicalization processes, including military involvement and online environments. The article also explores factors that shape the longevity of radicalization processes and their variation by group structure and crime type, and examines factors that affect pathways away from domestic extremism. It concludes with a discussion of how these findings can inform terrorism prevention strategies, criminal justice policy, and community-based prevention programming.
The Characteristics of U.S. Extremists and Individuals Who Commit Hate Crimes
Over the past two decades, research that seeks to understand individual-level engagement in violent extremism has grown tremendously. However, as the research field has developed, a gap has emerged between the increasingly sophisticated arguments that scholars use to explain extremism and the availability of data to test, refine, and validate theories of radicalization.
In 2012, NIJ funded the Empirical Assessment of Domestic Radicalization project to address the data gap in radicalization research.[6] The project created the Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States (PIRUS) database, a cross-ideological repository of information on the characteristics of U.S. extremists. In 2017, NIJ supported a follow-on project[7] that sought to replicate the PIRUS data for individuals in the United States who commit hate crimes. This project yielded the Bias Incidents and Actors Study (BIAS) dataset, the first data resource for researchers and practitioners interested in understanding the risk and protective factors associated with committing hate crimes.
PIRUS and BIAS are designed to provide users with information on a wide range of factors that can play a role in a person’s radicalization to criminal activity.[8] These risk and protective factors can be divided into four domains:[9]
The situational characteristics of the crimes, including whether the acts were premeditated or spontaneous, involved co-conspirators, or were committed while under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
The characteristics of the victims, including whether targets were “hard” (for example, military bases, secure facilities) or “soft” (for example, businesses, public areas, private civilians) and whether the individuals had prior relationships with their victims.
Factors that produce the social bonds that may protect against mobilization to violence, such as marriage, military service, work experience, and advanced education.
Factors that may act as radicalization mechanisms and risk factors for violence, such as previous criminal activity, membership in extremist or hate groups, substance use, and mental illness.
The PIRUS and BIAS data have been used to generate insights on a range of important topics related to hate crime and extremism; however, there are three overarching findings common to both datasets: diversity in beliefs, diversity in behaviors, and diversity in characteristics.
Diversity in Beliefs
Although it is not uncommon for a particular ideology to dominate the public discourse around extremism, the PIRUS and BIAS data indicate that U.S. extremists and individuals who commit hate crimes routinely come from across the ideological spectrum, including far-right, far-left, Islamist, or single-issue ideologies. These ideologies break down into particular movements, or sub-ideologies. For instance, in 2018, the PIRUS data identified extremists associated with several anti-government movements, Second Amendment militias, the sovereign citizen movement, white supremacy, ecoterrorism, anarchism, the anti-abortion movement, the QAnon conspiracy theory, and others.[10] The prevalence of particular movements can ebb and flow over time depending on political climate and law enforcement priorities, but at no point in recent U.S. history has one set of beliefs completely dominated extremism or hate crime activity.[11] Furthermore, the PIRUS and BIAS data reveal that U.S. extremists and individuals who commit hate crimes are often motivated by overlapping views. For instance, it is common for individuals from the anti-government militia movement to adopt views of white supremacy or for those from the extremist environmental movement to take part in anarchist violence. Nearly 17% of the individuals in PIRUS were affiliated with more than one extremist group or sub-ideological movement, and nearly 15% of the individuals in BIAS selected the victims of their hate crimes because of multiple identity characteristics, such as race and sexual orientation.[12]
Diversity in Behaviors
Although radicalization to violence has been a primary topic in extremism and hate crime research, the PIRUS and BIAS data indicate that U.S. extremists and individuals who commit hate crimes often engage in a range of violent and nonviolent criminal activities. Indeed, 42% of PIRUS and nearly 30% of BIAS individual actors engaged exclusively in nonviolent crimes, such as property damage, financial schemes, and illegal demonstrations.[13] Moreover, the violent outcomes represented in the PIRUS and BIAS data vary in scope and type. For instance, approximately 15% of those in BIAS committed or planned to commit mass casualty crimes, while the remaining subjects targeted specific victims.[14] Similarly, nearly 50% of those in BIAS did not premeditate their crimes but rather acted spontaneously after chance encounters with their victims.[15]
Diversity in Characteristics
One of the more common conclusions of recent research on radicalization is that no single profile accurately captures the characteristics of the individuals who commit extremist and hate crimes.[16] The PIRUS and BIAS data support this finding, revealing that background characteristics vary considerably depending on ideological affiliations. For instance, white supremacists in PIRUS tend to be older and less well-educated and are more likely to have criminal histories than those who were inspired by foreign terrorist groups, such as al-Qaida or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or those associated with the extremist environmental or anarchist movements.[17] Despite these differences, some risk and protective factors tend to separate violent from nonviolent individuals, regardless of ideology.[18] In the PIRUS data, individuals with criminal records, documented or suspected mental illness, and membership in extremist cliques are more often classified as violent, while those who are married with stable employment backgrounds are more likely to engage in nonviolent crimes.[19] Similarly, in BIAS, violent individuals are more likely to co-offend with peers, have criminal histories that include acts of violence, and offend while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.[20]
Military Experience and Domestic Violent Extremism
According to current statistics, individuals with military backgrounds represent 11.5% of the total known extremists who have committed violent and nonviolent crimes in the United States since 1990.[21] Although this percentage seems small, there has been a growing trend of (former) military members engaging in extremist offenses in recent years. An average of seven people with U.S. military backgrounds per year committed extremist crimes between 1990 and 2010. That rate has risen to an average of 29 people per year over the past decade. Also worth noting is that more than half (52%) of extremists with military experience are identified as violent.
Given the growth of violent domestic extremism among military personnel, the relationship between military service and radicalization has become a major concern. Prior NIJ-funded studies have identified military experience as a potential risk factor for attempted and actual terrorism.[22] The likelihood of radicalization and radicalization to violence increases when individuals have already left military service.[23] This research suggests that military service is not a social bond that inhibits extremist violence.
NIJ studies have also shown that individuals with military experience may be susceptible to recruitment by domestic violent extremist groups due to their unique skills, which an extremist group may perceive as contributing to the success of a terrorist attack.[24] Also, transitioning from military to civilian life appears to be a pull factor for engaging in violent extremism.[25] Indicators for potential involvement in extremism may include a lack of a sense of community, purpose, and belonging. If these indicators are identified early, community stakeholders — in partnership with military agencies — could have an opportunity to intervene. Although such knowledge is valuable, the role of military service in radicalization to violent extremism still requires study.
Differences in Violent Extremist Characteristics Between Military Veterans and Civilians
In 2019, NIJ funded researchers at the University of Southern California to study the link between military service and violent domestic extremism. They are also examining the differences between military veteran and civilian extremists in terms of their characteristics and social networks.[26] Although this study is ongoing, preliminary findings have been drawn from a secondary analysis of the American Terrorism Study data, which contain information on people federally indicted for terrorism-related crimes by the U.S. government between 1980 and 2002.[27] With these data, the researchers compared the demographic and homegrown violent extremist characteristics among military veterans and civilians. The demographic characteristics considered were age, race, sex, marital status, and education level. The homegrown violent extremist characteristics consisted of the length of group membership, type of terrorist group, role in the group, mode of recruitment into the group, primary target, and the state of indictment.
The research team observed significant differences between military veteran and civilian extremists across both demographic and homegrown violent extremist characteristics. First, they found that military veteran and civilian extremists differed with respect to age, sex, and marital status. Specifically, individuals with military service who engaged in homegrown violent extremism were more likely to be older, male, and in marital or cohabiting relationships than civilians who engaged in homegrown violent extremism. Second, analyses revealed that, compared to civilian extremists, military veteran extremists had greater affiliations with right-wing terrorist groups (versus left-wing, international, or other terrorist groups) and were more likely to hold leadership positions within these groups and either initiate a terrorist group or unite groups together. Finally, other than government/federal officials or buildings, which were the primary targets across all groups, the primary targets of veterans were diverse social groups, such as those belonging to racial, ethnic, and religious minority groups.
Implications of Transitioning Out of Military Service
The University of Southern California researchers intend to supplement these results by interviewing members from the social networks of military veterans and civilians who committed homegrown violent extremism between 2003 and 2019. The findings produced thus far are important, especially because the association between military experience and terrorism is understudied. Ultimately, these results suggest that people who transition from active duty to veteran status experience a nuanced, complex, and potentially lifelong process. Veterans who encounter difficulties during this transition and desire — but lack — a sense of community, purpose, and belonging after leaving the military may be attracted to the pull of domestic extremist groups. In these groups, veterans can lead and collaborate with others of similar ideologies to accomplish a shared mission akin to what they did in the military. For example, the military veterans in this study largely endorsed right-wing values; thus, perhaps something about the narratives of right-wing extremist groups compensates for the void felt when leaving military service. With such insights in mind, researchers recommend forming partnerships among civilians, the military, and veteran communities to identify and prevent violent extremism among U.S. veterans.
Longevity of Terrorist Plots in the United States
A major question for researchers and counterterrorism officials is how to prevent the next act of terrorism or violent extremism from occurring. As such, much attention has been paid to disrupted plots and successful interdiction tactics that ultimately led to arrest and indictment. Less attention has been given to what those responsible for acts of terrorism and violent extremism do to successfully evade detection and arrest. In other words, the focus has not been on what terrorists and violent extremists are doing “right.”
In 2013, NIJ funded researchers at the University of Arkansas’ Terrorism Research Center to study the sequencing of precursor behaviors for individuals who have been federally indicted in the United States for charges related to terrorism and domestic violent extremism.[28] Based on preliminary analyses, the researchers somewhat serendipitously observed lifespan differences between lone actors and those operating in small cells or more formalized groups. Consequently, it warranted a more comprehensive examination of the factors that increased the likelihood of terrorists and violent extremists evading arrest. NIJ funded the researchers to identify behaviors that improved the chances of plot longevity — or the ability for terrorists to commit acts of terrorism and evade capture by law enforcement — for individuals federally indicted on terrorism-related charges.[29]
Data on the longevity of terrorism and violent extremism plots come from the American Terrorism Study, the longest-running project on terrorism and violent extremism in the United States. With NIJ funding that began in 2003,[30] the American Terrorism Study maintains the most comprehensive dataset on temporally linked precursor behaviors and outcomes of terrorism and violent extremism plots. To examine plot longevity, the Arkansas researchers[31] limited their analyses to 346 federally indicted individuals who were linked to the planning or completion of a terrorist attack in the United States from 1980 to 2015. Longevity, or duration of their “terrorist lifespan,” is based on the date of a person’s involvement in their first preparatory activity and their “neutralizing” date (usually the date of arrest).
One of the key findings from this research is a correlation between significant declines in the lifespan of individual terrorists and major changes to the U.S. Attorney General guidelines established to combat terrorism and violent extremism in the United States. For example, those who began in the mid- to late 1970s, following Watergate, COINTELPRO, and the Privacy Act, had a median longevity of 2,230 days. In contrast, the median lifespan of terrorists who began operating in the mid-1980s decreased to 1,067 days. Later, in the early 2000s, it fell even further to 99 days, which reflects the FBI’s tighter focus on terrorism and violent extremism and guidelines granting law enforcement more discretion in the investigative techniques employed.
The researchers also found that the lifespans of terrorists and violent extremists vary significantly depending on key attributes, such as ideology, sex, and educational attainment. For example, environmental and extreme left-wing violent extremists tend to sustain themselves for relatively long periods of time (5.4 and 4.3 years, respectively), while the longevity of extreme right-wing and radical Islamist terrorists is, on average, two years or less.
Females federally indicted on charges related to terrorism and violent extremism also tend to have increased longevity compared to male terrorists and violent extremists, perhaps because of females’ disproportionate representation in longer-lasting extreme left-wing and environmental movements, as well as increased representation in left-wing group leadership roles. Females involved in terrorism and extremism are usually more educated, which is also associated with extended longevity. Further, females who play support roles in terrorism and extremist groups — as is more often the case for right-wing extremists and radical Islamist terrorists — also appear to have longer lifespans. In contrast, males have been more likely to engage in overtly criminal preparatory behavior and actual incident participation than females. Both types of behavior are significantly more likely to attract the attention of law enforcement and would be expected to shorten the longevity of both male and female terrorists and violent extremists.
Finally, longevity also depends on a plot’s sophistication and the extent of the planning required to carry it out. Less sophisticated plans or executed plots, or those using simpler and less advanced weapons, are generally associated with longer lifespans for terrorists and violent extremists. More sophisticated plots may provide greater potential for missteps by terrorists and violent extremists and leads for law enforcement. Additionally, more sophisticated plots are associated with more meetings with accomplices and necessitate extra preparation. Importantly, both the number of meetings and preparatory activities have been found to be negatively related to the successful completion of terrorist incidents, suggesting that early intervention or arrest are also linked to these two factors.
How Domestic Terrorists Use the Internet
Terrorists and terrorist groups use the internet to share propaganda and recruit new members. The internet provides a platform to strengthen their members’ commitment to the cause, encourage radicalized individuals to act, and coordinate legal and illegal activities. A recently published meta-analysis concluded, “Exposure to radical content online appears to have a larger relationship with radicalization than other media-related risk factors (for example, television usage, media exposure), and the impact of this relationship is most pronounced for the behavioral outcomes of radicalization.”[32]
In 2014, NIJ funded a study to develop a deeper understanding of what domestic terrorists discuss on the internet.[33] The study analyzed 18,120 posts from seven online web forums by and for individuals interested in the ideological far right. The research team read each post’s content and coded it for either quantitative or qualitative analyses depending on the project’s objective.
The project provided several important insights into terrorist use of the internet. First, the web forums included discussions about a variety of beliefs, such as gun rights, conspiracy theories, hate-based sentiments, and anti-government beliefs; however, the intensity of ideological expression was generally weak. The nature of the online environments that far-right groups use likely facilitates the diffusion of ideological agendas.
Second, the amount and type of involvement in these forums played a key role in radicalization. Posting behaviors changed over time. Users grew more ideological and radical as other users reinforced their ideas and connected their ideas to those from other forums. (It is important to note that the study focused on online expression and not conversion to offline violence.)
Third, far-right extremists were primarily interested in general technology issues. Discussions focused on encryption tools and methods (such as Tor), internet service providers and social media platforms, and law enforcement actions to surveil illicit activities online. These far-right extremists appeared more interested in defensive actions than sophisticated schemes for radicalization or offensive actions such as criminal cyberattacks.
The study used social network analyses to visualize user communications and network connections, focusing on individuals’ responses to posts made within threads to highlight interconnected associations between actors. The social network analyses indicated that far-right forums have a low network density, which suggests a degree of information recycling between key actors. The redundant connections between actors may slow the spread of new information. As a result, such forums may inefficiently distribute new knowledge due to their relatively insular nature. They may also be generally difficult to disrupt, as the participants’ language and behaviors reinforce others and create an echo chamber. These networks are similar to others observed in computer hacker communities and data theft forums,[34] which suggests that there may be consistencies in the nature of online dialogue regardless of the content.
The study also indicated that extreme external events usually did not affect posting behaviors. However, there were significant differences associated with conspiratorial, anti-Islamic, and anti-immigrant posts after the Boston Marathon bombing. It may be that violence or major disruptive events inspired by jihadist ideologies draw great responses from far-right groups relative to their own actions. The same appears to be true for the 2012 presidential election; the study observed increases both in the number of posts in the month after the election and in overt signs of individual ties or associations to far-right movements through self-claim posts, movement-related signatures, and usernames. These findings are consistent with other recent work comparing online mobilization after the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections.[35]
Entering and Exiting White Supremacy in the United States
An NIJ-funded research team led by RTI International examined the complex social-psychological processes involved with entering, mobilizing, and exiting white supremacy in the United States.[36] The researchers conducted in-depth life history interviews with 47 former members of white supremacist groups in 24 states and two provinces in Canada.[37]
For this project, white supremacy referred to groups that reject essential democratic ideals, equality, and tolerance. A key organizing principle is that inherent differences between races and ethnicities position white and European ancestry above all others. Those interviewed were authoritarian, anti-liberal, or militant nationalists who had a general intolerance toward people of color. They had used violence to achieve their goals and supported a race war to eradicate the world of nonwhite people.[38]
The study led to several key findings about entering and exiting white supremacy in the United States.
Hate as Outcome
The study found that most people do not join white supremacist groups because they are adherents of a particular ideology. Rather, a combination of background factors increases the likelihood that someone will be susceptible to recruitment messaging (for example, propaganda).[39] Previous research has highlighted that hate or adherence to racist violence was an outcome of participation in white supremacist groups.[40] The commitment to white supremacist groups lacked a preexisting sense of racial grievance or hatred that motivated an individual to join the racist movement.[41] One former member reported having “no inkling of what [Nazism] really was other than what you saw on TV.”[42] The NIJ-funded study found that people joined white supremacist groups because they were angry, lonely, and isolated, and they were looking for opportunities to express their rage.[43]
Vulnerabilities as Precondition
The former white supremacists had various personal, psychological, and social vulnerabilities that made them strive for what psychologists have framed as developing a new possible self.[44] High levels of negative life experiences — including, but not limited to, maladjustment, abuse, and family instability — potentially make a person imagine a new, different, and more fulfilled self.[45] They can imagine an empowered future self with friends and a purpose. Extremist recruiters prey on these desires. The former white supremacists indicated high levels of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse as children; strained personal relationships; and general difficulties throughout their lives. These struggles made white supremacy seem like an improvement to their sense of self, as the group came with a ready-made set of friends, social events, and camaraderie among individuals with similarly rough pasts. Besides these social benefits, white supremacist groups provided members with a deeper sense of belonging and explanation for their life troubles, rooted in a sense of racial pride and empowerment.
Gradual, Nonlinear Exit
Most white supremacists in this country do not remain members for life. Rather, group membership is often temporary (but not always short-lived), and many become disillusioned and burnt out over time. The study showed that the exit process is gradual, as the former white supremacists reported slowly becoming dissatisfied with the ideology, tactics, or politics of a group.[46] They described an identity that became filled with negative encounters with other members, even breeding distrust. White supremacy requires the development of a totalizing identity that results in isolating members from nonextremists. This marginalization fosters a sense of social stigma that makes white supremacy less attractive and further supports disengagement and deradicalization processes.
This research reported that emotional dynamics create trajectories of development and decline in white supremacy and the role of disillusionment among the reasons why members exit the organization.[47] These analyses offer an explanation for how white supremacist organizations maintain solidarity even though many individuals stay in groups after losing their ideological commitment. They also demonstrate that exit from a group is a nonlinear process.[48] Meanwhile, in other analyses, the study team reported that, even after an individual exits a group, their white supremacist identity lingers with a residual effect.[49] That research likened hate to an addiction that creates an uncontrollable emotional, social, and cognitive hold over adherents, which has the ability to pull former members back into hate almost against their will.[50] The former white supremacists shared experiences in which music, environments, and images created desire, longing, and curiosity about their old lifestyle within the organization.
Opportunities
The NIJ-funded study found several blind spots in terms of identification and awareness among criminal legal system practitioners and other responders. This resulted in several missed opportunities for intervention and practical solutions. Exhibit 1 details four areas in which the study findings can contribute to criminal justice policy and practice.[51]
Exhibit 1. Missed Opportunities for Intervention and Practical Solutions
The results of the NIJ-funded studies discussed in this article have several implications for policy and practice. First, they illustrate that extremism is complex and that successfully countering it will require a unified response that bridges law enforcement, community partners, health officials, and concerned citizens. To facilitate a shared understanding of the extremist threat, stakeholders engaged in counterextremism efforts routinely use findings from these studies to provide training to concerned family and friends about potential radicalization warning signs and how best to respond. They also use the findings to educate law enforcement, corrections and probation officers, and mental health professionals on the complexity of radicalization so they can accurately gauge and respond to extremism in their communities. These types of training initiatives will remain critical to counterextremism efforts as the threat continues to evolve.
Second, the studies highlight the importance of focusing criminal justice resources on domestic extremism. Although international terrorist organizations remain a threat, these studies show that domestic extremists continue to be responsible for most terrorist attacks in the United States. Historically, far fewer resources have been dedicated to the study of domestic extremism, leaving gaps in our understanding about terrorist trends, recruitment and retention processes, and online behaviors. Due in large part to NIJ’s commitment to funding research on domestic radicalization, considerable progress has recently been made in addressing these topics. But this work will need to continue if we hope to keep pace with the rapidly evolving threat landscape.
Finally, the studies highlight the need for communitywide partnerships that link government and nongovernment organizations in support of community-level prevention and intervention programs. Law enforcement and criminal justice resources for countering extremism are finite and scarce, making it imperative that we focus our research and support efforts on understanding what occurs before a crime takes place. As the studies reviewed in this article show, there is often an opportunity to intervene to help individuals exit extremism before they engage in criminal activity. Similarly, prevention efforts are needed in digital spaces where extremist narratives often flourish. Achieving these goals will require community members, policymakers, and practitioners to commit to supporting counterextremism efforts.
About This Article
This article was published as part of NIJ Journal issue number 285. This article discusses the following awards:
Opinions or points of view expressed in this document represent a consensus of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position, policies, terminology, or posture of the U.S. Department of Justice on domestic violent extremism. The content is not intended to create, does not create, and may not be relied upon to create any rights, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law by any party in any matter civil or criminal.
[note 8] The PIRUS and BIAS datasets are based on the same data collection methodologies and share similar goals. Both contain random samples of individuals who committed crimes in the United States that were motivated by their extremist ideologies or hate beliefs. The PIRUS dataset includes 2,225 individuals from 1948 to 2018, and BIAS is based on 966 cases from 1990 to 2018. Both datasets are collected entirely from public sources, including court records, online and print news, and public social media accounts. Both seek to capture individuals who promoted a range of extremist ideologies and hate beliefs. PIRUS, for instance, includes those whose crimes were associated with anti-government, white supremacist, environmental, anarchist, jihadist, and conspiracy theory movements. Similarly, BIAS includes individuals who selected victims based on their race, ethnicity, and nationality; sexual orientation; religious affiliation; age; or disability.
[note 21] Unless otherwise noted, all data reported in this section originate from Michael Jensen, Elizabeth Yates, and Sheehan Kane, Radicalization in the Ranks: An Assessment of the Scope and Nature of Criminal Extremism in the United States Military, College Park, MD: START, January 2022. In this project, extremists with military backgrounds consisted of active and nonactive personnel from all military branches and reserves, aside from the Space Force and Coast Guard Reserves. Individuals who were honorably discharged, dishonorably discharged, or otherwise violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice were excluded from the study. Also excluded were those discharged through court martial unless information about their criminal proceedings was publicly available.
[note 34] Thomas J. Holt and Adam M. Bossler, “Issues in the Prevention of Cybercrime,” in Cybercrime in Progress: Theory and Prevention of Technology-Enabled Offenses (New York: Routledge, 2016), 136-168.
[note 37] The project included three human rights groups (Anti-Defamation League, Simon Wiesenthal Center, and Southern Poverty Law Center) and Life After Hate, an organization that assists white supremacists in exiting the movement. The project partners helped develop a semi-structured interview protocol and provided contact information for initial interviewees. The study used a snowballing technique from these initial interviewees to identify former white supremacists who were in the public sphere to determine if they were interested in being interviewed. The interviews were conducted in places where the individuals would be comfortable, including hotel rooms, homes, places of work, coffee shops, restaurants, and parks. The interviews were in-depth accounts (lasting 6-8 hours each) of individuals’ backgrounds (for example, how they grew up), entry into white supremacy (for example, how they learned about the movement), mobilization (for example, rank and use of violence), and exit process (for example, initial doubts and barriers to exit). The completion of the project was a collaboration with equal contributions from Kathleen Blee, Matthew DeMichele, and Pete Simi and support from Mehr Latif and Steven Windisch.
NIJ-funded research projects have led to a better understanding of the processes that result in violent action, factors that increase the risk of radicalizing to violence, and how best to prevent and respond to violent extremism.
What NIJ Research Tells Us About Domestic Terrorism
Militant, nationalistic, white supremacist violent extremism has increased in the United States. In fact, the number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism.
Report finding rightwing extremists have killed more Americans than other domestic terrorist groups vanished from DoJ website
The US justice department has scrubbed a study from its website concluding that far-right extremists have killed far more Americans than any other domestic terrorist group, just days after a gunman fatally shot the prominent conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The report, now archived, titled What NIJ Research Tells Us About Domestic Terrorism, vanished from the Department of Justice website between 11 and 12 September, according to Jason Paladino, an independent investigative reporter who first wrote the story. Kirk, the 31-year-old Turning Point USA founder and Trump ally, was gunned down while speaking at Utah Valley University on 10 September.
The vanished study opened with: “Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives. In this same period, far-left extremists committed 42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives.”
Tyler Robinson, 22, has been charged with Kirk’s murder and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. In the aftermath of the shooting, Donald Trump and other Republican leaders have blamed “radical left” elements for the attack.
The National Institute of Justice study, which was based on research spanning three decades, represented one of the most comprehensive government assessments of domestic terrorism patterns. It found that “militant, nationalistic, white supremacist violent extremism has increased in the United States” and that “the number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism”.
Where the report once appeared, the justice department wrote it was “reviewing its websites and materials in accordance with recent executive orders”, according to 404Media, though the page is now unavailable.
But the findings align with independent research from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which analyzed 893 terrorist plots between 1994 and 2020. That study concluded: “Rightwing attacks and plots account for the majority of all terrorist incidents in the United States since 1994.”
In congressional testimony in 2023, Heidi Beirich, the executive vice-president of Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told lawmakers as an expert witness that “data on acts of political violence clearly shows that it is the far right that is driving terrorism in the US, including targeting and, in certain cases, murdering law enforcement”.
“That is not to say there is no violence from far-left actors,” she continued, “it is just simply not on the scale or as deadly as what is coming from far-right actors.”
Kirk had built Turning Point USA into a major conservative youth organization and spoke at last year’s Republican national convention. He was addressing students when he was shot.
The justice department has not responded to requests for comment about the study’s removal.
US justice department removes study finding far-right extremists commit ‘far more’ violence
Report finding rightwing extremists have killed more Americans than other domestic terrorist groups vanished from DoJ website
404 Media: DOJ Deletes Study Showing Domestic Terrorists Are Most Often Right Wing
Following Charlie Kirk’s assassination and the Trump administration’s promise to go after the “radical left” a study showing most domestic terrosim is far-right was disappeared. Attorney General Pam Bondi. Image: DOJ The Department of Justice has removed a study showing that white supremacist and far-right violence “continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism” in the United States.
The study, which was conducted by the National Institute of Justice and hosted on a DOJ website was available there at least until September 12, 2025, according to an archive of the page saved by the Wayback Machine. Daniel Malmer, a PhD student studying online extremism at UNC-Chapel Hill, first noticed the paper was deleted.
“The Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs is currently reviewing its websites and materials in accordance with recent Executive Orders and related guidance,” reads a message on the page where the study was formerly hosted. “During this review, some pages and publications will be unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”
DOJ Deletes Study Showing Domestic Terrorists Are Most Often Right Wing
Following Charlie Kirk’s assassination and the Trump administration’s promise to go after the “radical left” a study showing most domestic terrosim is far-right was disappeared.
Caregiving staff say agents are bringing in patients, often denying them visitors and speaking on their behalf to staff
Dianne Sposito, a 69-year-old nurse, is laser-focused on providing care to anyone who enters the UCLA emergency room in southern California, where she works.
That task was made difficult though one week in June, she said, when a federal immigration agent blocked her from treating an immigrant who was screaming just a few feet in front of her in the hospital.
Sposito, a nurse with more than 40 years of experience, said her hospital is among many that have faced hostile encounters with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents amid the Trump administration’s escalating immigration crackdown.
The nurse said that the Ice agent – wearing a mask, sunglasses and hat without any clear identification – brought a woman already in custody to the hospital. The patient was screaming and trying to get off the gurney, and when Sposito tried to assess her, the agent blocked her and told her not to touch the patient.
“I’ve worked with police officers for years, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Sposito said. “It was very frightful because the person behind him is screaming, yelling, and I don’t know what’s going on with her.”
The man confirmed he was an Ice agent, and when Sposito asked for his name, badge, and warrant, he refused to give her his identification and insisted he didn’t need a warrant. The situation escalated until the charge nurse called hospital administration, who stepped in to handle it.
“They’re interfering with patient care,” Sposito said.
After the incident, Sposito said that hospital administration held a meeting and clarified that Ice agents are only allowed in public areas, not ER rooms and that staff should call hospital administration immediately if agents are present.
But for Sposito, the guidelines fall short, as the hostility is unlike anything she has seen in over two decades as a nurse, she said..
“[The agent] would not show me anything. You don’t know who these people are. I found it extremely harrowing, and the fact that they were blocking me from a patient – that patient could be dying.”
Since the Trump administration has stepped up its arrest of immigrants at the start of the summer, nurses are seeing an increase in Ice presence at hospitals, with agents bringing in patients to facilities, said Mary Turner, president of National Nurses United, the largest organization of registered nurses in the country.
“The presence of Ice agents is very disruptive and creates an unsafe and fearful environment for patients, nurses and other staff,” Turner said. “Immigrants are our patients and our colleagues.”
While there’s no national data tracking Ice activity in hospitals, several regional unions have said they’ve seen an increase.
“We’ve heard from members recently about Ice agents or Ice contractors being inside hospitals, which never occurred prior to this year,” said Sal Rosselli, president emeritus of the National Union of Healthcare Workers.
Turner said nurses have reported that agents sometimes prevent patients from contacting family or friends and that Ice agents have listened in on conversations between patients and healthcare workers, actions that violate HIPAA, the federal law protecting patient privacy.
In addition, Turner said, nurses have reported concerns that patients taken away by Ice will not receive the care they need. “Hospitals are supposed to discharge a patient with instructions for the patient and/or whoever will be caring for them as they convalesce,” Turner said.
Nurses, in California and other states across the nation, said they fear the new policy, in addition to deterring care at medical facilities, will deter sick people from seeking care when they need it.
“Allowing Ice undue access to hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and other healthcare institutions is both deeply immoral and contrary to public health,” said George Gresham, president of the 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, and Patricia Kane, the executive director of the New York State Nurses Association in a statement. “We must never be put into positions where we are expected to assist, or be disrupted by, federal agents as they sweep into our institutions and attempt to detain patients or their loved ones.”
Policies on immigration enforcement vary across healthcare facilities. In California, county-run public healthcare systems are required to adopt the policies laid out by the state’s attorney general, which limit information sharing with immigration authorities, require facilities to inform patients of their rights and set protocols for staff to register, document and report immigration officers’ visits. However, other healthcare entities are only encouraged to do so. Each facility develops its own policies based on relevant state or federal laws and regulations.
Among the most high-profile cases of Ice presence in hospitals in California occurred outside of Los Angeles in July. Ming Tanigawa-Lau, a staff attorney at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, represents Milagro Solis Portillo, a 36-year-old Salvadorian woman who was detained by Ice outside her home in Sherman Oaks and hospitalized that same day at Glendale Memorial, where detention officers kept watch in the lobby around the clock.
Solis Portillo was then forcibly removed from Glendale Memorial against her doctor’s orders and transferred to Anaheim Global Medical center, another regional hospital, according to her lawyer. Once there, Ice agents barred her from receiving visitors, denied her access to family and her attorney, prevented private conversations with doctors and interrupted a monitored phone call with Tanigawa-Lau.
“I repeatedly asked Ice to tell me which law or which policy they were referring to that allowed them to deny visits, and especially access to her attorney, and they never responded to me,” Tanigawa-Lau said.
Ice officers sat by Solis Portillo’s bed and often spoke directly to medical staff on her behalf, according to Tanigawa-Lau. This level of surveillance violated both patient confidentiality and detainee rights, interfering with her care and traumatizing her, Tanigawa-Lau said.
Since then, Solis Portillo was moved between facilities, from the Los Angeles processing center to a federal prison and eventually out of state to a jail in Clark county, Indiana.
In a statement, Glendale Memorial said “the hospital cannot legally restrict law enforcement or security personnel from being present in public areas which include the hospital lobby/waiting area”.
“Ice does not conduct enforcement operations at hospitals nor interfere with medical care of any illegal alien,” said DHS assistant secretary, Tricia McLaughlin. “It is a longstanding practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters Ice custody. This includes access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care.”
The federal government has aggressively responded to healthcare workers challenging the presence of immigration agents at medical facilities. In August the US Department of Justice charged two staff members at the Ontario Advanced Surgical center in San Bernardino county in California, accusing them of assaulting federal agents.
The charges stem from events on 8 July, when Ice agents chased three men at the facility. One of the men, an immigrant from Honduras, fled on foot to evade law enforcement and was briefly captured in the center’s parking lot, and then he broke free and ran inside, according to the indictment. There, the government said, two employees at the center, tried to protect the man and remove federal agents from the building.
“The staff attempted to obstruct the arrest by locking the door, blocking law enforcement vehicles from moving, and even called the cops claiming there was a ‘kidnapping’,” said McLaughlin. The Department of Justice referred questions about the case to DHS.
The immigrant was eventually taken into custody, and the health care workers, Jesus Ortega and Danielle Nadine Davila were charged with “assaulting and interfering with United States immigration officers attempting to lawfully detain” an immigrant.
Oliver Cleary, who represents Davila, said a video shows that Ice’s claim that Davila assaulted the agent is false.
“They’re saying that because she placed her body in between them, that that qualifies as a strike,” Cleary said. “The case law clearly requires it to be a physical force strike, and that you can tell that didn’t happen.”
The trial is slated to start on 6 October.
California nurses decry Ice presence at hospitals: ‘Interfering with patient care’
Caregiving staff say agents are bringing in patients, often denying them visitors and speaking on their behalf to staff
