Did you hear about the study that supposedly shows that almost all terrorists are foreign born? It appears that this might be a controversial conclusion. Simon Maloy noted a small-print caveat, but since he put his finding on Twitter, which is virtually unreadable, I’ll quote Steve Benen on Maddowblog instead:
Simon Maloy, for example, took note of the Trump administration’s methodology. From the second full page of the newly released report: “This information includes both individuals who committed offenses while located in the United States and those who committed offenses while located abroad, including defendants who were transported to the United States for prosecution. It does not include individuals convicted of offenses relating to domestic terrorism, nor does it include information related to terrorism-related convictions in state courts.”
Oh. So the point of the report appears to be bolster Trump World’s argument that those concerned about terrorism on American soil should necessarily be concerned with immigrants and foreigners. After all, as the document put it, approximately 73 percent of those convicted of international terrorism-related charges in U.S. federal courts “were foreign-born.”
But that includes convicted terrorists who weren’t in the United States until we brought them here for trial and it excludes instances of domestic terrorism – which, as we know, is often at least as dangerous to the American public as international terrorism.
From the Department of Justice:
“This report reveals an indisputable sobering reality—our immigration system has undermined our national security and public safety,” said Attorney General Sessions.
It’s hard to decide if Sessions is trying to bolster the xenophobic position which resonates with President Trump’s base, or if he’s attempting to gloss over any and all Christian terrorist actions on American soil – of which there’ve been a few, mostly resulting in the assassination of doctors who perform abortions.
But the motivation, as base as it is, and as poorly as it reflects on AG Sessions’ intellectual and moral qualities, is irrelevant to a consequence not mentioned by Benen or Maloy, and that’s this: If this report is not withdrawn and/or repudiated, in particular by the AG himself, then it’ll become part of the intellectual record of the United States, meaning that its apparent flaws will be ignored, and its conclusions to be congruent with the reality.
And then? Policies will be implemented on it. And the taint of the study will transfer to those policies, as is ever the case. Soon we’ll have a tanks all over the southern and northern borders and hordes of police checking every incoming plane and ship, while scant dollars will be dedicated to the problems of domestic terrorism. And then we’ll wonder why we don’t seem to be as safe as we should be, and no one will think to look at the critical flaws of the report that started it all.
Unless we protest this now.
