Report: Scores of jihad-terror convicts are from banned countries

It is deeply disturbing that 77% of “refugees” allowed into U.S. since notorious 9th Circuit Court travel reprieve come from the 7 countries on Trump’s terror list.

72 individuals from the seven mostly Muslim countries covered by President Trump’s “extreme vetting” executive order have been convicted of terrorism, a finding that clashes sharply with claims from an appeals court that there is “no evidence” those countries have produced a terrorist.

Report: Dozens of terror convicts from ban countries

Boston Herald,  February 12, 2017:

Dozens of people from the seven Muslim-majority nations included in President Trump’s executive order on immigration have been convicted on terrorism-related charges in the U.S. since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, according to a review that contradicts an appellate court decision against the travel and refugee ban.

A recent analysis of information gathered last year by the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest led the conservative Center for Immigration Studies to publish a report yesterday revealing that 72 people who entered the United States from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen have been convicted on criminal charges stemming from terror cases since Sept. 11, 2001.

The center’s director of policy studies, Jessica Vaughan, said the review’s findings “stand in stark contrast to the assertions by the 9th 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.”

“This is just another myth that’s been put out there by people who are upset by restrictions on Syrian refugees that say, ‘There’s never been a refugee that’s committed a terrorist act in the United States.’ Well, there’s been 17 just from these seven countries, according to this information,” Vaughan told the Herald.

Vaughan said the subcommittee report, which is no longer available on the Senate website, relied on open sources because the Obama administration refused to turn over government records and found that of the 580 people convicted in terror cases since 9/11, 380 were foreign-born.

“I was shocked that there were that many since 9/11, and even more shocking that 380 of them were foreign-born, which debunks this idea that it’s all homegrown terrorism,” Vaughan said. “The information shows the threat from the inadequate vetting in our immigration system has been present for a long time and I don’t think the public is fully aware of that.”

In a ruling Thursday, three judges of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled against reinstating President Trump’s ban on travelers from the seven predominantly Muslim countries — and noted in court documents that the government “has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the Order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States.”

And though the subcommittee report was never referenced in court, Vaughan says the proof is in the numbers.

According to the analysis, 20 people from Somalia, 19 from Yemen and Iraq, seven from Syria, four from Iran, two from Libya and one from Sudan were convicted in terror cases since Sept. 11, 2001. Vaughan said the subcommittee report — which includes names of offenders, dates of conviction, terror group affiliation, federal criminal charges, sentence imposed, state of residence, and immigration history — also found that 33 of the 72 were convicted of “very serious terror-related crimes” and were sentenced to at least three years behind bars.

Charges 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, she said.

And though she admitted opponents argue the Senate report was flawed because it included people who were not necessarily terrorists because they were convicted of crimes such as identity fraud and making false statements, she was quick to point to the case of Abdul Razak Ali Artan, who was shot and killed after attacking and wounding 11 people at Ohio State University in November 2016. Artan was a Somalian who arrived in 2007 as a refugee.

“It shows that every category of immigration has seemed to be exploited by terrorists,” Vaughan said. “It’s not just people coming in on legal visas, it’s people we have admitted on green cards, some of whom have become citizens and that’s something that I don’t think has been fully appreciated.”

But Council on American-Islamic Relations spokesman Ibrahim Hooper dismissed the Center for Immigration Studies review as “push-back from the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim crowd.”

“They’ll spin whatever they can to try and make Muslims or immigrants or refugees look bad to promote their own particular agenda. It’s unfortunately expected in the world we live in,” Hooper told the Herald. “Our nation is so divided now that you get people promoting their particular agenda based on their own spin, on their own view of whatever issue, instead of looking at the reality of the situation.”