Terrorist Entry Through the Southwest Border: Facts vs. Fear

Alex Nowrasteh, Sept. 16, 2023

"Yesterday, I testified at the “Terrorist Entry Through the Southwest Border” hearing before the House Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement. You can watch the entire hearing here, my spoken testimony here, and some highlights are here. My written testimony is here. This was an excellent opportunity to highlight my research on foreign‐​born terrorism in the United States. Also, Rep. Chip Roy yelled at me. ... Inspired by John Mueller’s pathbreaking work to quantitatively estimate the risk posed by terrorism, I adapted his methods to estimate the threat posed by foreign‐​born and native‐​born terrorists in response to the policy issues in the 2016 election and during much of the Trump administration. I updated the terrorism and immigration risk analysis last month, but this is just a tiny sample of my work on this topic. I testified that zero Americans have been injured or killed in terrorist attacks by illegal immigrants or asylum seekers who entered through the southwest border. Indeed, there have been zero terrorist attacks on U.S. soil by illegal immigrants or asylum seekers who crossed that border. ... "