US "in a heightened threat environment" following attacks in Israel, Homeland Security secretary says

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in Washington on Tuesday. Win McNamee/Getty Images

US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told lawmakers Thursday that the United States is in a “heightened threat environment” following Hamas' October 7 attacks in Israel.

Mayorkas listed a series of actions that President Joe Biden's administration is taking to assist communities and law enforcement, including providing information and intelligence, issuing a joint intelligence bulletin in the immediate aftermath of the attack, distributing funding to help secure places of worship and communicating with faith communities.

“We are engaging extensively with faith communities, speaking with them about the steps that they can take to ensure that the individuals who practice, continue to practice, their faith, which is so foundational are able to do so with a sense of security,” Mayorkas said.

Possible threats at "historic levels": FBI Director Christopher Wray echoed those actions during the Senate hearing, saying that his agency is also involved in outreach and tackling hate crimes.

“This is a threat that is reaching, in some way, sort of historic levels,” Wray said.

“The reality is that the Jewish community is uniquely, uniquely targeted by pretty much every terrorist organization across the spectrum. And when you look at a group that makes up 2.4% roughly of the American population, it should be jarring to everyone that that same population accounts for something like 60% of all religious-based hate crimes, and so they need our help,” Wray said.

Wray said that propaganda may encourage violent extremists or other lone-wolf actors within the United States.

Lone actors, homegrown violent extremists inspired by foreign terrorist organizations, are in many ways the biggest threat we face here in the homeland,” Wray said.

He continued, “To have this many foreign terrorist organizations this explicitly calling for attacks significantly … takes the threat level, the threat environment, the risk to a whole other level here.”