President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday temporarily banning all refugees and suspending entry for 90 days for citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries in the name of protecting the United States. But experts say his claim is not backed up by data, and the order will likely prove dangerous for national security.
Trump’s executive order, “Protecting The Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States,” indefinitely blocks all refugees from Syria, suspends the entire broader refugee admissions program for 120 days, and stops citizens from “countries of particular concern” — per existing designations, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen — from entering the United States for 90 days.
“I’m establishing new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America. We don’t want them here,” Trump said during his first visit to the Pentagon as commander in chief before signing the order.
Former U.S. ambassador to Syria and Iraq Ryan Crocker said in a statement that banning “the admission of Syrian refugees contradicts American values, undermines American leadership and threatens American security by making the ISIS case that we are at war with Islam.”
The order states that “the entry of nationals of Syria as refugees is detrimental to the interests of the United States.” It bans refugees from Syria from entering the U.S. indefinitely, until the president determines “that sufficient changes have been made to the” refugee program “to ensure that admission of Syrian refugees is consistent with the national interest.”
As Trump couches his executive order in the language of protecting the United States from terrorism, it is crucial to look at the issue from a historical context, Brian Michael Jenkins, a senior adviser to the president of the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation, told The Cipher Brief.
Obviously there is no way of predicting how many possible future terrorist attacks will have been prevented by this particular restriction, but Jenkins pointed out, “one question we could ask is: had this same restriction been in effect the day after 9/11, what effect would it have had on terrorism in this country?”
The numbers tell that story. Post 9/11, Jenkins said, there have been 147 individuals involved in plotting or carrying out terrorist attacks in this country. Of them, 71 percent — or 104 people — were U.S. citizens. Another 20 were legal permanent residents, and Jenkins noted that “when you look at the individual biographies, these are people who were radicalized in this country, after they came here.” That means 124 people, or 84 percent, were long-term residents of the United States, and eight of the total individuals were in the country on a temporary visa, according to Jenkins. Two individuals — one from Iraq and one from Somalia — were refugees.
Information is unknown on three of the people arrested, Jenkins said, while 10 others entered from a variety of means, such as being smuggled into the country or entering by a green card via marriage.
“Our problem isn’t one of importing terrorism, it’s rather a problem of terrorism being inspired by these jihadist ideologies,” Jenkins said. “The problem really is one of homegrown terrorism, not importing terrorism from abroad.”
The executive order states that “numerous foreign-born individuals have been convicted or implicated in terrorism-related crimes since September 11, 2001, including foreign nationals who entered the United States after receiving visitor, student, or employment visas, or who entered through the United States refugee resettlement program. Deteriorating conditions in certain countries due to war, strife, disaster, and civil unrest increase the likelihood that terrorists will use any means possible to enter the United States.”
As a result of fatal jihadist-driven terrorist attacks since 9/11 — the 2002 Los Angeles International Airport shooting, the 2009 Little Rock shooting, the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, the 2015 Chattanooga shootings, and the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting — 89 people have been killed, Jenkins said. The attackers in these cases were either U.S.-born citizens, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Kuwait, or individuals from Pakistan, Russia and Egypt — countries not included under this order.
“How many of those lives would have been saved had exactly the same directive [as Trump signed] been put into effect after 9/11 and applied for the entire 15-year period? The answer is zero,” Jenkins said.
If 9/11 is included in the tally, Jenkins noted that none of the 19 attackers were from the countries named in Trump’s order — and 15 were from Saudi Arabia.
And taking a look at the U.S. Visa Waiver program in the last three decades, out of over 300 million entries, just three terrorists have been let into the country under the program, Jenkins noted. Visa waiver requirements have been boosted tremendously since the last case involving a terrorist, the so-called “shoe-bomber” in December 2001, he added.
“The only thing that I can offer when I brief officials in Washington or testify before Congress or talk to staffers is analysis of what we see going on. Here are the facts, here are the trends, here the numbers. They make the policy decisions. However, look – had this been in effect for the last 15 years, it would not have saved a life,” Jenkins said.
In a statement, House Speaker Paul Ryan said that “it’s time to reevaluate and strengthen the visa vetting process.” He added, “President Trump is right to make sure we are doing everything possible to know exactly who is entering our country.”
Meanwhile, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center Matthew Olsen said “turning our back on vulnerable refugees doesn’t protect the United States — in fact, it plays into ISIS’s false narrative that we are at war with all Muslims, instead of terrorist organizations.”
“Our refugee screening system is rigorous and thorough, and attempts to end or derail resettlement are simply contrary to our national interest,” he said in a statement provided by the organization Human Rights First.
Human Rights First’s Eleanor Acer told The Cipher Brief that Trump’s approach “aimed at blocking and derailing the resettlement of Syrian and other Muslim refugees is absolutely counterproductive to U.S. national security interests.”
“Efforts to ban Muslim refugees just play into ISIS’ rhetoric, and also send the wrong signals to U.S. allies around the world,” Acer said. “The U.S. needs allies in the Muslim world.”
U.S. refugee resettlement, she said, helps advance national security interests given that it is an important tool to support the stability of frontline states, such as Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan.
In addition to this indefinite ending of entry to the U.S. for Syrian refugees, the order also calls for a halt on the broader refugee program for 120 days, and once resumed, would cap the number of people admitted to 50,000 for fiscal year 2017— down from the 110,000 ceiling President Barack Obama put in place.
And upon the resumption of admissions under the refugee program, Trump’s order directs the Secretary of State to “prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual’s country of nationality,” an apparent effort to allow Christians to come into the country from Muslim-majority countries. In an interview taped with the Christian Broadcast Network prior to the release of the order, Trump referred to Christians from Syria having an “almost impossible” time getting into the U.S. “And I thought it was very, very unfair. So we are going to help them,” Trump said.
Trump’s order would also impact some people who have worked with the U.S military and government, such as Iraqis who worked with embassies, contractors, and U.S. media. “Many of these people will also have their settlement applications suspended, leaving them in very dangerous circumstances,” Acer noted.
The provisions “included in the order also threaten the lives of Iraqis and Afghans who risked their safety to help the United States and our servicemembers by exacerbating the backlogs they face,” Crocker said in a statement provided through Human Rights First.
Mackenzie Weinger is a national security reporter at The Cipher Brief. Follow her on Twitter @mweinger.
