Following the formal opening of the 101st Michigan Legislature, state Rep. Sarah Anthony (D-Lansing) introduced House Resolution 8 of 2021, renewing her call to Congress to enact legislation classifying domestic terrorism as a federal crime.
“More than 400 days have passed since I first introduced this resolution back in 2019. Since then, we’ve seen acts of domestic terrorism unfold throughout the nation—including right here in Lansing when heavily-armed protesters stormed Michigan’s Capitol less than a year ago,” said Anthony. “We cannot continue on like this; we must give our federal agencies the proper resources and scope to investigate domestic terrorism as a federal crime—not in a few months, not in a few years or decades—now.”
With extremism and domestic terrorism on the rise in recent years, federal authorities like the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security have continued to face legal limitations for prosecution due to outdated federal definitions that fail to explicitly outlaw it.
In addition to prosecutions, designating domestic terrorism as a federal crime would open access to additional tools and resources for law enforcement agencies to gather further data, track situations and combat violent extremism.