S. 963

Domestic Terrorism and Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2021

This bill establishes new requirements to expand the availability of information on domestic terrorism, as well as the relationship between domestic terrorism and hate crimes. The bill also facilitates the expedited review of COVID-19 hate crimes and reports of COVID-19 hate crimes.

It authorizes domestic terrorism components within the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to monitor, analyze, investigate, and prosecute domestic terrorism.

The bill creates an interagency task force to analyze and combat white supremacist and neo-Nazi infiltration of the uniformed services and federal law enforcement agencies.

It directs the FBI to assign a special agent or hate crimes liaison to each field office to investigate hate crimes incidents with a nexus to domestic terrorism.

Finally, the bill requires a designated officer or employee of DOJ to facilitate the expedited review of COVID-19 hate crimes and reports of COVID-19 hate crimes.

It defines COVID-19 hate crime as a violent crime that is motivated by two things: (1) the actual or perceived characteristic (e.g., race or ethnicity) of any person, and (2) the actual or perceived relationship to the spread of COVID-19 of any person because of that characteristic.