“The various people who have, in fact, committed terrorist acts in this country, from 9/11 on, none of them came from any of the seven countries that are the subject of the president’s executive order.” — New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler
Verdict: False
On Friday, January 27, 2017, President Trump signed an executive order titled, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.” The order barred citizens of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the United States for 90 days. Trump’s order also paused all refugee admissions for 120 days and paused indefinitely the admission of Syrian refugees.
Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler claimed in a January 28 interview on CNN that none of the people who have “committed terrorist acts in this country” since 9/11 came from the seven countries targeted by President Trump’s travel ban.
Nadler’s claim is wrong.
Publicly-available information shows that dozens of people in the U.S. from those seven countries have been implicated in “terrorist acts.”
Between September 11, 2001 and December 31, 2014, at least 60 people convicted of terror-related offenses came from the seven countries targeted by Trump’s travel ban, according to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest.
The subcommittee also identified at least 16 more individuals from these seven nations that from March 2014 to June 2016 were implicated in terrorism. The subcommittee relied on publicly-available information, so the actual number of terrorists from the seven countries affected by Trump’s travel ban could be even higher.
Nadler also overlooked a pair of stabbing attacks just last year — one in St. Cloud, Minnesota and the other at Ohio State University — that were tied to foreign terrorist organizations. ISIS claimed responsibility for the two attacks, both of which were carried out by Somali refugees.
Our verdict:
Nadler’s claim that no “terrorist acts” in the U.S. since 9/11 have come from the seven countries affected by President Trump’s travel ban ignores the dozens of individuals from those countries convicted of terrorism in the U.S., as well as the two terrorist attacks carried out by Somali refugees last year.
