The Trump administration's FY2027 budget requests $166.1 million and 328 new positions for the FBI to operationalize NSPM-7 (National Security Presidential Memorandum 7) — a domestic terrorism directive that identifies “extremism on migration, race, and gender” as a category of threat alongside “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” and “anti-Christianity.”
The budget funds a new NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center staffed by personnel from 10 federal agencies, tasked with “integrating intelligence, operational support, and financial analysis” to “proactively identify networks and prosecute domestic terrorist and related criminal actors.” FBI Director Kash Patel reported a 300% increase in domestic terrorism investigations. The FBI's domestic terrorism watchlist contained approximately 5,000 U.S. citizens as of September.
The directive contains no First Amendment protections and directs monitoring of social media and educational institutions for “radicalization indicators.” LGBTQ and civil liberties advocates warn the “gender extremism” language could be used to target queer and transgender rights movements.
The ACLU's Hina Shamsi called it “a fever dream of conspiracies, outright falsehoods, and the president's distorted equation of criticism of his policies by real or perceived political opponents with 'criminal and terroristic conspiracies.'” The Brennan Center identified critical flaws: no cited statutory or constitutional authority, “cherry-picked” incidents that weren't coordinated campaigns, and a scope broad enough to encompass “labor organizers, socialists, libertarians, and pro-immigration groups.” Over 3,000 NGOs signed an opposition letter.
Even The New American (John Birch Society publication) criticized the framework as “pre-crime” FBI overreach — rare cross-spectrum opposition from the libertarian right.