Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday opened a three-day White House summit on countering violent extremism by pointing to the U.S. experience with assimilating immigrants as a factor in helping it prevent the terrorist attacks that have hit Europe.
”I am not suggesting that America has all of the answers here; we are just a lot more experienced,” he told a roundtable in the executive office building. “We are a nation of immigrants and our strength is that we are a melting pot.”
Community leaders from Los Angeles, Boston and Minneapolis-St. Paul – which pilot programs aimed at countering extremism – were joined at the event by the mayors of Rotterdam, Netherlands and Vilvoorde, Belgium. Biden said he also had private meetings with European leaders on Tuesday ahead of wider discussions with countries on Wednesday and Thursday at which the president will speak.
“The topic of discussion in our closed meetings was about what is to be done in Europe now,” said Biden. “They are asking what we have done.”
Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called the summit “urgent and essential,” noting that recetn attacks in Australia, Canada, France, Belgium and Denmark, “underscore the significance of the challenges we face in countering violent extremism.”
The pilot programs were announced by the Justice Department in October 2014 to bring together community representatives, public safety officials, and religious leaders. They are run in partnership with the White House, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Counterterrorism Center, and the pilot cities were chosen based on the fact that they already had community-oriented policing and civic engagement programs.
Obama will deliver the keynote address at the program tomorrow at the White House and the three cities will present the findings of their pilot programs.