|
Dear John,
Earlier today, I and leaders of other community-based organizations met with Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Alejandro N. Mayorkas. I took this opportunity to bring attention to the tragic, racially-motivated murders of members of the Afzaal-Salman family in Canada and the immediate need to address white supremacist violence. The Biden Administration needs to comment on this attack and address it as a threat to the security of all Americans.
As we broke down in our 2019 white paper, “The White Supremacist Threat to America”, the transnational nature of the white supremacist threat is not new. I urged the Secretary and the Biden Administration at large to, in no uncertain terms, condemn this horrific act as a premeditated act of terror and speak on the global nature of this threat. What happened in Canada is related to what happened in Christchurch, the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, the two Norway attacks, and the insurrectionist attack on our Capitol this past January.
I cautioned Secretary Mayorkas that longstanding negligence in addressing the issue directly has made violent acts such as this all too commonplace. Attributing these kinds of attacks as lone wolf incidents has been used as an excuse to not adequately investigate these increasingly dangerous, deadly, and unfortunately more frequent acts of terror nor pass effective legislation to ensure the safety of all Americans, regardless of ethnicity or faith.
|
