Домой United States USA — Criminal Trump administration highlights 'foreign-born' terror-related criminals in immigration push

Trump administration highlights 'foreign-born' terror-related criminals in immigration push

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Justice and Homeland Security officials release report as immigration talks in Congress falter.
The Trump administration on Tuesday released a terrorism report aimed at bolstering its push for stricter limits on legal immigration to the United States, but conceded that the report is incomplete and needs more details to paint the full picture of the threats posed by foreign-born terrorists.
The report, which was written by the departments of Justice and Homeland Security, was supposed to be completed in September. But it was released Tuesday just as Congress is trying to craft a compromise that would extend protections for undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, known as DREAMers, in exchange for enhanced immigration enforcement sought by the Trump administration.
The report found that of 549 terrorism-related convictions in U. S. federal courts since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 402 of the defendants (73%) were foreign-born. The report also found that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents deported 1,716 individuals with “national security concerns” between 2001 and 2017.
President Trump tweeted that the findings prove the U. S. must reduce «chain migration» — the long-standing ability of U. S. citizens and green card holders to sponsor their relatives abroad to enter the U. S. — and the diversity visa lottery.
“This report is a clear reminder of why we cannot continue to rely on immigration policy based on pre-9/11 thinking that leaves us woefully vulnerable to foreign-born terrorists,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a statement.
But the report does not show how many of the convicted people entered the country through «chain migration» or the diversity visa lottery. It does not show how the 1,716 people who were deported on terrorism grounds entered the country.
The report does not show what countries the convicted people came from. It does not show whether the convictions were based on attacks designed to hit inside the U. S. or in other countries.
Instead, the report highlighted eight cases of foreign-born immigrants convicted of terrorism charges. One entered the country as a refugee. One entered the country through the diversity visa program. One was the child of a legal immigrant.
And five entered the country based on their relation to a «family member» in the United States. The report does not specify what their relation was. That makes it impossible to determine if they were immediate relatives, an immigration category that is widely accepted by Democrats and Republicans, or if they were more distant relations, which could fall under the «chain migration» category the Trump administration wants to eliminate.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Rep. Bernie Thompson, D-Miss., issued a joint statement blasting the administration’s report, arguing that it disregards the fact that homegrown extremists have killed more Americans than foreign-born ones since 9/11.
«This misleading report relies on manufactured data to perpetuate a myth that immigrants — specifically, those from Muslim countries — are dangerous elements within our country,» the statement read. «The Administration then uses these falsehoods as reasoning and license for policies that promote the continued abuse of our rights and civil liberties.»
The administration has previously singled out attacks as proof tougher policies are needed. The suspect in an attempted suicide bombing in New York last month migrated from Bangladesh on an extended family visa, and the perpetrator of the truck attack that left eight people dead in New York November was an Uzbekistan immigrant who migrated on a diversity visa.
But in some of the most deadly recent attacks, the perpetrators were American-born. They include Stephen Craig Paddock, the shooter who killed 59 people in Las Vegas in September, and Devin Patrick Kelley, who gunned down 26 people in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in November.
The report also claims that there are between 23 and 27 «honor killings» committed in the United States each year without providing any evidence for that estimate or examples of that practice. Honor killings are committed against family members based on their failure to adhere to religious beliefs. The report cites an unpublished paper for the estimate.
Homeland Security officials said they hoped to fill in the blanks of the report in months to come, but could not provide more details on Tuesday.
The report is sure to be used by congressional negotiators as they try to hammer out an immigration compromise that threatens to stall spending negotiations. The government has until Friday to finalize a spending bill to avoid a government shutdown.
Democrats have been pushing for a congressional fix to protect DREAMers, after Trump ended the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that has shielded nearly 800,000 of them from deportation. In exchange, Republicans in Congress and the White House have put forth a long list of demands to improve border security, bolster interior immigration enforcement and limit legal immigration.
Last week, some members of Congress who participated in a White House meeting over the future of DACA said Trump referred to multiple countries around the world as «s—hole countries» whose people were flooding the United States. He asked why nations such as Norway did not immigrate here.
On Tuesday, Nielsen told a Senate committee she did not hear Trump use that word while referring to nations that produce immigrants.
Trump tweeted Tuesday morning about the need for «a great WALL» to protect the southern border, and accused Democrats of trying to shut down the government «over Amnesty for all.»

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