Study: 72 Convicted Terrorists Who Live in U.S. Came from Countries Covered by Vetting Order

This should come as a rude shock to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judges who justified overturning Trump’s “extreme vetting” executive order covering seven mostly Muslim countries by claiming there is “no evidence” those countries have produced a terrorist.

The Center for Immigration Studies compiled a list of 72 U.S. residents from those seven countries who were convicted of terror-related charges.

In June 2016 the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, then chaired by new Attorney General Jeff Sessions, released a report on individuals convicted in terror cases since 9/11. Using open sources (because the Obama administration refused to provide government records), the report found that 380 out of 580 people convicted in terror cases since 9/11 were foreign-born. The report is no longer available on the Senate website, but a summary published by Fox News is available here.

The Center has obtained a copy of the information compiled by the subcommittee. The information compiled includes names of offenders, dates of conviction, terror group affiliation, federal criminal charges, sentence imposed, state of residence, and immigration history.

The Center has extracted information on 72 individuals named in the Senate report whose country of origin is one of the seven terror-associated countries included in the vetting executive order: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. The Senate researchers were not able to obtain complete information on each convicted terrorist, so it is possible that more of the convicted terrorists are from these countries.

The United States has admitted terrorists from all of the seven dangerous countries:

• Somalia: 20
• Yemen: 19
• Iraq: 19
• Syria: 7
• Iran: 4
• Libya: 2
• Sudan: 1
• Total: 72

According to the report, at least 17 individuals entered as refugees from these terror-prone countries. Three came in on student visas and one arrived on a diplomatic visa.

At least 25 of these immigrants eventually became citizens. Ten were lawful permanent residents, and four were illegal aliens.

These immigrant terrorists lived in at least 16 different states, with the largest number from the terror-associated countries living in New York (10), Minnesota (8), California (8), and Michigan (6). Ironically, Minnesota was one of the states suing to block Trump’s order to pause entries from the terror-associated countries, claiming it harmed the state. At least two of the terrorists were living in Washington, which joined with Minnesota in the lawsuit to block the order.

Thirty-three of the 72 individuals from the seven terror-associated countries were convicted of very serious terror-related crimes, and were sentenced to at least three years imprisonment. The crimes included use of a weapon of mass destruction, conspiracy to commit a terror act, material support of a terrorist or terror group, international money laundering conspiracy, possession of explosives or missiles, and unlawful possession of a machine gun.

The Ninth Circuit judges were not interested in the truth or the law — which is why even if this report had been shoved in front of their faces, they still would have claimed that there was “no evidence” that anyone from the seven named countries were terrorists.

When you think about it, you have to be delusional to believe that statement, even without this study. But political correctness is a powerful incentive to deny reality and pretend that Muslims from these terror-infested countries are no more likely to be terrorists than anyone else.