National Archives This is historical material “frozen in time”. The website is no longer updated and links to external websites and some internal pages may not work.
Open Search

Fact Sheets

Our Current Immigration System Jeopardizes American Security

Immigration

Issued on:

ENTRY OF FOREIGN-BORN TERRORISTS: The Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security released a new report showing how many convicted terrorists entered the United States through our immigration system.

  • The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have jointly submitted a report pursuant to President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order 13780: Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States.
  • The report found that approximately three out of every four individuals convicted of international terrorism-related charges between September 11, 2001 and December 31, 2016 are foreign-born individuals who entered the United States through our immigration system.
    • 402 foreign-born individuals were convicted of terrorism in United States courts.
    • 1,716 foreign-born aliens with national security concerns were removed from the United States.
    • These totals only show those aliens who were convicted or removed, and therefore, do not represent the total measure of foreign terrorist infiltration of the United States.
  • A significant number of terrorists have entered the United States solely on the basis of family ties and extended-family chain migration.
    • Mufid Elfgeeh, who benefitted from chain migration, was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison for attempting to recruit fighters for ISIS.
    • Mahmoud Amin Mohamed Elhassan, who entered the United States as a relative of a lawful permanent resident, pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to ISIS.
    • Uzair Paracha, who entered the United States as a relative of a lawful permanent resident, was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison for providing material support to al Qaeda.
  • Terrorists have also entered the United States through the visa lottery program.
    • Abdurasaul Hasanovich Juraboev, who entered the United States through the visa lottery program, pleaded guilty to conspiring to support ISIS.
    • Ali Shukri Amin, who entered the United States as the child of a visa lottery recipient, was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for conspiring to provide material support to ISIS.
  • The report by DOJ and DHS does not contain information regarding the number of terrorism and terrorism-related offenses committed by individuals who are the children of foreign-born individuals.
    • Terrorist attacks carried out by children of foreign-born individuals include the attack in Orlando by Omar Mateen, which killed 49 people and wounded more than 50 others, and the attack in San Bernadino, California by Syed Rizwan Farook, which killed 14 people and injured 22 others.
  • The report also found that in FY 2017, DHS had 2,554 encounters with individuals on the terrorist watchlist who had attempted to enter and infiltrate the United States.

GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE: The report by DOJ and DHS also sheds light on acts of gender-based violence committed against women by foreign nationals.

  • There are an average of 23 to 27 honor killings in the United States every year, according to a study commissioned and provided to DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2014.
    • The 2014 study also estimated that approximately 1,500 forced marriages occur in the U.S. every year.
  • More than 90 percent of the victims of honor killings in North America were murdered for being “too westernized,” according to a representative sample studied through open media sources.
  • The Government Accountability Office published a report in 2011 that found criminal aliens incarcerated in state and local prisons were convicted for 69,929 sex offenses between fiscal years 2003 and 2009.
  • According to a 2016 report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of women and girls at risk of undergoing female genital mutilation (FGM) was three times higher in 2012 compared to 1990.
    • The CDC report states that the increase was entirely a result of the rapid growth in the number of immigrants from FGM practicing countries.

TIME TO END CHAIN MIGRATION AND THE VISA LOTTERY: This report shows, once again, that our current immigration system jeopardizes our national security.

  • By failing to impose meaningful selection criteria, such as skills or likelihood to assimilate, our current family-based system is incompatible with national security.
  • President Trump sent a list of priorities designed to enhance public safety and national security to Congress last October, which included the elimination of the visa lottery program and extended-family chain migration.
  • The Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security have repeatedly explained that our current immigration system compromises our national security.