Since the 9/11 attacks, 72 people coming from the seven Middle Eastern countries named in President Donald Trump's executive order on travel and refugees have been convicted on terrorism charges, according to a new report released Saturday.
According to the nonpartisan Center for Immigration Studies, the report stands "in stark contrast to the assertions by the Ninth Circuit judges who have blocked the president's order on the basis that there is no evidence showing a risk to the United States in allowing aliens from these seven terror-associated countries to come in."
At least 17 of those who have been convicted claimed to be refugees, while three came into the United States as students. Twenty-five more eventually became American citizens, the report shows.
According to a breakdown of the countries and the numbers of people who were eventually convicted of terror crimes:
- Somalia: 20
- Yemen: 19
- Iraq: 19
- Syria: 7
- Iran: 4
- Libya: 2
Jessica Vaughan, the center's director of policy studies, said she based the report on information from a report in 2016 from the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest.
The subcommittee at that time was chaired by Sen. Jeff Sessions, who is now the new attorney general.
The report also determined that out of 580 people convicted in terrorism attacks since 9/11, 380 were born in foreign countries.
Out of the 72 from Trump's targeted states, the persons arrested on terrorism charges lived in at least 16 different states, with the most living in New York, which had 10; Minnesota and California had eight each; and Michigan, six.
Minnesota, along with Washington, were the states that sued to block the travel ban order, and the report revealed at least two of those convicted were from Washington.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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