Karen Greenberg was quoted in a Vice News article about the Justice Department’s recent report linking terrorism and immigration in the United States.
Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University School of Law, says that the report is misleading on many levels, but firstly because it only covers a timespan through 2016, and some key things have changed since then. The report found that just 147 of the 549 individuals convicted of international terrorism between 2001 and 2016 were U.S. citizens by birth. “That number has changed significantly in the last few years,” said Greenberg, noting that 60 percent of individuals in ISIS cases were born in the U.S., a rate that’s increased over time.
Greenberg worries that by focusing on the threat posed by foreign-born individuals rather than homegrown extremism, the Trump administration could be missing the mark with its counterterrorism strategy.
Much of the language in the 11-page report and the accompanying press release is vague. For example, the release states that “in 2017 alone DHS had 2,554 encounters with individuals on the terrorist watch list (also known as the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database) traveling to the United States.” But neither the release or report say how those encounters ended.
“This report is too short; it just isn’t in-depth enough to tell us anything. It’s not careful enough or specific enough,” said Greenberg. “What does that actually mean? You suspected someone, and you questioned someone? That’s disturbing.”
That’s not the only instance where the report appears to muddy the waters between being suspected of terrorism and being found guilty of terrorism.
“The information in this report is only the tip of the iceberg,” Sessions said. “We currently have terrorism-related investigations against thousands of people in the United States, including hundreds of people who came here as refugees.”
“The numbers of investigations are always vastly more than the number of indictments,” said Greenberg. “You can’t say because someone is investigated that they’re guilty.” The FBI investigates 7,000 to 10,000 international terror cases in any given year, and in fiscal year 2017, for perspective, there were 44 convictions.