More than 100 Civil Rights Groups Agree: We Don’t Need New Domestic Terrorism Laws

Civil rights groups across the country are urging President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as Congressional Democrats, not to pass new laws to address any potential threats from white nationalists emboldened by and loyal to former President Donald Trump.

In a letter dated Tuesday, 135 civil rights organizations—ranging from religious groups, immigration advocates, and LGBT organizations, to the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People—expressed their concerns about calls to pass new criminal laws in the wake of the riot and temporary invasion of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters:

The Justice Department (DOJ), including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), has over 50 terrorism-related statutes it can use to investigate and prosecute criminal conduct, including white supremacist violence, as well as dozens of other federal statutes relating to hate crimes, organized crime, and violent crimes. The failure to confront and hold accountable white nationalist violence is not a question of not having appropriate tools to employ, but a failure to use those on hand. To date, DOJ has simply decided as a matter of policy and practice not to prioritize white nationalist crimes.

The letter is necessary because Biden and his administration came into the White House already planning to focus on domestic terrorism, and one possibility the transition team was mulling over is the Confronting Thre