The NAACP is asking Congress to hold hearings on what the group describes as a troubling spike in domestic terrorism aimed at racial, ethnic and religious minorities in the US – directly implicating the rhetoric of Donald Trump.

The group sent letters to the House Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees on Wednesday formally laying out its request.

“Sadly, many with racist beliefs have been emboldened by a national climate in which our nation’s highest office sanctions dog whistle politics and xenophobic rhetoric,” said NAACP president Derrick Johnson in a statement. “Now is the time to act to ensure our communities are awakened to these potential dangers and protected.”

Johnson said that the recent arrest of Christopher Hasson – a white supremacist who amassed a cache of weapons and ammunition with the intention of assassinating a number of high profile progressive politicians and media figures – added urgency to the request, calling the discovery of Hasson’s plans “unnerving”.

Alongside mass casualty events, like one that Hasson was allegedly planning, or the October attack that left 11 dead at a Pittsburgh synagogue, the NAACP also cites a rise in the number of hate crimes in the US. A recent report from the FBI found that hate crimes were up 17% in 2017, capping a third-straight year of increases.

Although the report cautioned that the apparent spike may have been partially due to increased reporting by law enforcement, then acting attorney general Matthew Whittaker called the findings “a call to action” and “despicable violations of our core values as Americans”. The Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League have also found increases in hate crime activity roughly tied to the political rise of Trump.

The House Committee on Homeland Security told the Guardian that domestic terrorism has been a “top priority” for its chairman, Democrat Bennie Thompson, for years. “We will be holding hearings on this topic, but none have been officially scheduled yet,” a spokesperson said.

The judiciary committee did not respond to a request for comment.

The NAACP, often credited as the nation’s oldest civil rights organization also asked Congress to hold hearings to bring transparency to the surveillance of black activists, specifically from the Black Lives Matter movement by the FBI and other arms of federal law enforcement.

It was revealed last year that the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI had produced internal reports labeling “black identity extremists” as posing a possible violent threat in the US. According to the Center for Constitutional Rights, which sued for access to several of the relevant items, “the documents were in stark contrast with the agencies’ communications regarding white supremacist groups, whom they deemed as engaging in ‘lawful’ protest activity worthy of government protection.”

For that reason, Johnson said the group sees the two issues – of domestic terrorism and surveillance of black activists – as inextricably linked.

“We see the same issue because it is a matter of priorities, and also a matter of resource allocation,” Johnson said. “Are we spending more time dealing with young people who are expressing their opposition through peaceful demonstration, assembly and protests? Or are we actually pursuing a course of action to deal with individuals who have committed terroristic acts and have the noun individuals and threatened with bodily harm?”

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Johnson said he is optimistic the group’s request will be taken seriously by the committees, whose leadership transferred from Republicans to Democrats last month after the 2018 midterms.

Johnson is especially hopeful for congressional engagement on these issues based on how active some progressive freshman legislators, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib have been. “I applaud the energy this freshman class is bringing into the conversation,” Johnson said.

He added: “It’s time for our nation to come to grips with the unjust parts of its history and what that history means to black people. It’s only then that we can begin the process of moving forward and purge ourselves of the idea of race and racism.”