Three-quarters of US terrorists foreign-born: Trump administration
NEW YORK: The Trump administration on Tuesday released a report that states 73 percent of those convicted in the US of international terrorismrelated offenses since 9/11 were foreign-born, as it moves to tighten immigration rules.
Officials from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Justice Department cited in the report said that three out every four people convicted in US federal courts of international terror charges were born overseas.
However, Muslim-rights activists told Arab News that the study was flawed and biased.
US federal courts convicted at least 549 people of international terrorism-related charges between Sept. 11, 2001, and Dec. 31, 2016, the report said. Of those, 254 were not US citizens and 148 were naturalized US citizens. Another 147 were born US citizens.
The report names convicted terrorists from Sudan, Uzbekistan, Somalia, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen, as well as other countries.
The report focuses on acts planned and committed both outside and inside the US, involving Daesh or other foreign groups. It excludes acts of domestic terrorism that did not involve overseas organizations.
“This report reveals an indisputable sobering reality — our immigration system has undermined our national security and public safety,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a Republican, said in a statement.
“And the information in this report is only the tip of the iceberg: We currently have terrorism-related investigations against thousands of people in the US, including hundreds of people who came here as refugees.”
In the 2016 election campaign, Trump pledged to temporarily halt Muslim travel to the US, and since taking office has issued a ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries and a ban on refugees that has been dogged by legal challenges.
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on AmericanIslamic Relations (CAIR), a Washington-based Muslim civil rights group, told Arab News that the report’s authors had cherrypicked data to confirm prejudices.
“It’s reverse-engineering the numbers to stigmatize immigrants and Muslims, and disregarding the high number of domestic terror incidents that are not included in this report by really sidestepping all the domestic terrorism by white supremacists and the like,” Hooper said.
Washington is currently debating overhauls of America’s immigration system, with Democrats pushing for amnesties for some undocumented migrants and their children, while Republicans want to tighten US borders and immigration rules.
Trump has linked recent terrorist attacks to immigration, and has called for an end to the green card lottery, restriction of asylum applications, targeting people who overstay their visas, and stopping the so-called “chain migration” of family members to the US.
The White House says the current system brings too many people to the country who cannot assimilate and lack the skills and education to contribute to society. It cites the point-based systems of Australia and Canada as examples of methods it would like to emulate.
“Our properly functioning immigration system promotes assimilation in all its forms, through whatever mechanism by which those individuals come to the US,” a senior administration official told reporters in a background briefing on the report.
“It doesn’t promote the admission of individuals who are not likely to succeed, who are not likely to assimilate, and who could potentially radicalize or may already be radicalized to pose a threat to our national security.”