S. 2457 — Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2025

This section provides definitions for terms used in the Act, including (1) Director as the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; (2) domestic terrorism as having the meaning given in 18 U.S.C. §2331(5) (i.e., activities involving acts dangerous to human life that violate U.S. or state criminal laws, appear intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence government policy or conduct, and occur primarily within U.S. jurisdiction); (3) hate crime incident as an act described in 18 U.S.C. §§241, 245, 247, or 249 or 42 U.S.C. §3631 (i.e., conspiracy against rights, interference with federally protected activities, damage to religious property, Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act offenses, or interference with housing rights); (4) Secretary, except as otherwise provided, as the Secretary of Homeland Security; and (5) uniformed services as having the meaning given in 10 U.S.C. §101(a).

This section authorizes three new offices to monitor, analyze, investigate, and prosecute domestic terrorism: (1) a Domestic Terrorism Unit in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Intelligence and Analysis; (2) a Domestic Terrorism Office in the Department of Justice (DOJ) National Security Division Counterterrorism Section, headed by a Domestic Terrorism Counsel and coordinating with the Civil Rights Division on potential hate crimes; and (3) a Domestic Terrorism Section in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Counterterrorism Division. It directs DHS, DOJ, and FBI leaders to staff these offices adequately—including at least one employee per office dedicated to civil rights and civil liberties compliance and annual anti-bias training for all employees—with the offices terminating 10 years after enactment. This section further requires those agency heads to submit a joint report, authored by the new offices, to specified Senate and House committees on the Judiciary, Homeland Security, and Intelligence—initially within 180 days of enactment and biannually thereafter for 10 years. Each report must assess the domestic terrorism threat from White supremacists and neo-Nazis (including infiltration of law enforcement and uniformed services); analyze domestic terrorism incidents since April 19, 1995 (first report) or the prior six months (subsequent reports), including White supremacist-related cases; and provide quantitative FBI data for the prior six months on assessments, preliminary and full investigations, incidents (with deaths/injuries), arrests, indictments, prosecutions, convictions, and weapons recoveries—all categorized by type with specific White supremacism subcategories—plus explanations of cases advancing through multiple stages.

This section requires the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and the FBI Director to review their agencies' anti-terrorism training and resource programs—provided to federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement, including the State and Local Anti-Terrorism Program funded by the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance—and ensure such programs include training and resources to help those agencies understand, detect, deter, and investigate domestic terrorism and white supremacist and neo-Nazi infiltration of law enforcement and corrections agencies. The section further requires the Attorney General to make available training for Department of Justice prosecutors and Assistant U.S. Attorneys on countering and prosecuting domestic terrorism, with training focused on the most significant threats identified in the joint report required under section 3(b); mandates that trainers have expertise in domestic terrorism plus relevant academic, law enforcement, or community-based experience; and directs the three officials to submit reports to the congressional committees specified in section 3(b)(1) not later than six months after enactment and semiannually thereafter, including copies of training materials and trainer names and qualifications, with unclassified portions (or unclassified reports with classified annexes if necessary) posted on the respective public websites of the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

This section directs the Attorney General, FBI Director, Secretary of Homeland Security, and Secretary of Defense to establish, not later than 180 days after enactment, an interagency task force to analyze and combat White supremacist and neo-Nazi infiltration of the uniformed services and federal law enforcement agencies. Not later than one year after the task force's establishment, these officials must submit to specified Senate and House committees on judiciary, homeland security, intelligence, and armed services a joint report on the task force's findings and their responses thereto—in unclassified form to the greatest extent possible, with a classified annex if necessary and the unclassified portion posted on the public websites of the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Defense.

This section (1) authorizes the Community Relations Service (CRS) of the Department of Justice—established under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to assist communities in resolving disputes related to race, color, or national origin—to offer its support to communities where the DOJ has brought charges in a hate crime incident with a nexus to domestic terrorism; and (2) amends 18 U.S.C. §249, which criminalizes willfully causing bodily injury (or attempting to do so using fire, firearms, dangerous weapons, explosives, or incendiary devices) to any person because of the person's actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability, by adding a new subsection (f) requiring the Attorney General, through the FBI Director, to assign a special agent or hate crimes liaison to each FBI field office to investigate hate crimes incidents with a nexus to domestic terrorism (both as defined in section 2 of the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2025).

This section provides a rule of construction stating that nothing in this Act or its amendments may be construed to authorize the infringement or violation of any right protected under the First Amendment or an applicable provision of federal law.

This section authorizes appropriations to the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Defense for such sums as necessary to carry out this Act and the amendments made by this Act.