Little National Security Benefit to Trump ’s Executive Order on Immigration

Tomorrow, President Trump is expected to sign an executive order enacting a 30-day suspension of all visas for nationals from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.   Foreigners from those seven nations have killed zero Americans in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1975 and the end of 2015.  Six Iranians, six Sudanese, two Somalis, two Iraqis, and one Yemini have been convicted of attempting or carrying out terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Zero Libyans o r Syrians have been convicted of planning a terrorist attack on U.S. soil during that time period.Many other foreigners have been convicted of terrorism-related offenses that did not include planning a terrorist attack on U.S. soil.   One list released by Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) details 580terror-related convictions since 9/11. This incomplete list probably influenced which countries are temporarily banned, and likely provided justification for another section of Trump ’s executive order, which directs the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to release all information on foreign-born terrorists going forward, and requires additional DHS reports to study foreign-born terrorism.I exhaustively evaluated Senator Sessions ’ list of convictions based on publicly available data and discovered some startling details.First, 241 of the convictions (42 percent) were not for terrorism offenses.  Senator Sessions puffed his numbers by including “terrorism-related convictions,” a nebulous category that...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs