Of the 580 individuals convicted of terrorism between September 11, 2001 and December 31, 2014, at least 380 were foreign born, according to an analysis by the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest released Wednesday.
Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions and Texas Senator Ted Cruz have been requesting information from the federal government about the immigration status of individuals implicated in terrorism since 2014. The Department of Justice responded with a list of terrorists convicted between 9/11 and December 31, 2014 and pointed the senators to the Department of Homeland Security for the immigration inquiry.
The DHS has not responded to Sessions and Cruz with the immigration background of convicted terrorists. The senate subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, of which Sessions is a chairman and Cruz is a member, used publicly available resources to figure out the immigration background of the terrorists the DOJ provided them.
Of the 380 foreign born, 24 were admitted to the U.S as refugees, and 33 had overstayed visas. The subcommittee identified that at least 71 of the convicted terrorists were natural-born citizens, and the immigration status of the other 129 is unknown. (RELATED: Less Than 1 Percent Of Immigrants Who Overstayed Visas Were Deported In 2015)
Sixty-two of the foreign-born convicted terrorists were from Pakistan, 28 were from Lebanon, 22 were Palestinian, 21 were Somali, 20 were from Yemen, 19 were Iraqi, 16 were from Jordan, 17 were from Egypt, and ten were Afghan. (RELATED: Obama Admin Increases Green Cards For Migrants From Pro-Sharia Countries)
These figures are potentially larger as the subcommittee was only able to use public sources to gain the immigration information. Also of the 580 terrorists the DOJ listed to the senators, those with sealed cases, or that have been handled through immigration proceedings are not listed, so this number could be greater.
Cruz and Sessions’ office have so far identified at least 131 additional individuals who have been implicated in terrorism since early 2014 — these haven’t been convicted and are newer cases. At least 54 of these individuals are foreign-born and 16 of them were initially admitted to the United States as refugees. At least another 17 are the natural-born citizen children of immigrants. (RELATED: How Many Syrian Refugees Are In The US? (And How Many More Are Coming?)