Response to Trump’s anti-terror proposals

As Donald Trump releases his new policy outline for fighting against terrorism, in which he plans to tighten immigration standards in order to combat threats such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), promising that “we will be tough, and we will be even extreme” in the process, it is a good time to revisit the issues of terrorism and immigration and not lose sight of the facts.

Firstly, it is important to remember that this entire discussion started after the terror attacks in Paris. This is illogical, since the attackers were all home grown EU nationals and not immigrants. Subsequent attacks which as well galvanized anti-immigration sentiments, such as those in Brussels, San Bernardino, Orlando, and the recent attack in Nice in France, also were committed by nationals, not immigrants or refugees.

{mosads}This, however, did not stop the chorus of right-wing agitation against migrants, a go-to scapegoat for any and all social ills.

From this distorted perspective came the propaganda campaigns aimed at equating all Muslim immigration with jihadi terrorism, demagogically rounding up a support base through fear while appealing to racial hatred for “the other.”

There’s a major problem with all of this though: while there have indeed been cases of immigrants committing terror attacks, they represent a tiny fraction of the total. The overwhelming number of attacks are committed by US citizens.

An extensive study published by the University of Chicago’s Journal of Politics explored the nexus between terrorism and immigration, documenting 145 countries between 1970 and 2000, and found that “migration is overall not a source of terrorism,” while in fact “the study indicates that more migration could create a decrease in the number of terrorist attacks, not an increase.”  

This is because “when migrants move from one country to another, they carry skills, knowledge, and perspectives, which stimulate technological innovation, the diffusion of new ideas and economic growth”, and therefore “if terrorism and economic development are indeed related more migration decreases the opportunity for terrorism.”

Further academic research by Harvard University sociologist Robert Sampson has as well found that concentrations of immigration in the US actually correlate to a reduction of violent crime, not an increase.

Furthermore, the US already employs extensive immigrant security protocols.  According to recovered intelligence documents and testimony from former ISIS members, groups like ISIS have not been able to send attackers into America because “they know it’s hard for them to get Americans into America” once they have traveled to Syria.

What does add to the threat are gun policies.  A former ISIS member with insider knowledge explains that “it’s much easier for them to get them over the social network, because they say the Americans are dumb — they have open gun policies… They say we can radicalize them easily, and if they have no prior record, they can buy guns, so we don’t need to have no contact man who has to provide guns for them.”  

Ironically, those calling for “tough on immigration” policies are largely right-wingers who are passionately pro-gun.

Another wrench in the gears is that the majority of these attacks have not been committed by Muslims, or by jihadi extremists.

A 2015 study by New America found that “nearly twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists, anti-government fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical Muslims.”

If this seems surprising, it is all too familiar to the police.

One survey asked “382 police and sheriff’s departments nationwide to rank the three biggest threats from violent extremism in their jurisdiction. About 74 percent listed antigovernment violence, while 39 percent listed “Al Qaeda-inspired” violence.”

Dr. Kurzman of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security explains that “Law enforcement agenda around the country have told us the threat from Muslim extremists is not as great as the threat from right-wing extremists.”

In an FBI study which documented acts of terrorism committed in the US between 1980 and 2005 it was found that 94% of the attacks were committed by non-Muslims.

In Europe a similar picture emerges from official statistics.  According to data compiled by Europol, less than 2% of terrorist attacks in the E.U. are motivated by Islamic extremists.

However, the University of Chicago study did find some evidence of increased terrorism in a country which accepted migrants from another where terrorism was especially rife.  Today, these areas are places like Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen- but how did they become like that?

Former CIA officer Graham Fuller explains that it was the US’ “destructive interventions in the Middle East and the war in Iraq” which were “the basic causes of the birth of ISIS.”

In a study by top researchers at the Center on Law and Security at the NYU School of Law it was found that “the Iraq War has generated a stunning sevenfold increase in the yearly rate of fatal jihadist attacks, amounting to literally hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and thousands of civilian lives lost.”

Interestingly, those who support such terrorism-generating interventions are also some of the most vehement backers of closed-immigration policies.

For instance, many of those supporting a ban on Muslim immigration are also some of the most enthusiastic about arming the “moderate rebels” in Syria in order to topple Assad.  The Syrian opposition however is “dominated by hard-line Islamists determined to tear down all regime institutions,” while the Pentagon and the CIA both admit that the US-backed rebels are affiliated and fighting alongside al-Qaeda.  Despite this, the US recently just delivered them another shipment of 3,000 tons of weapons, even though these “moderates” routinely pass up to 50% of their US-supplied weapons directly to al-Qaeda.

A lot can be done to stop the threat of terrorism, including ending our involvement with directly supporting terrorist groups, however besides this it is not a secret where the threat of Middle-Eastern terrorism against the west stems from; the root causes are the results of policies that could easily be reversed.

According to a 2004 Department of Defense report on terrorism commissioned by Donald Rumsfeld, “American direct intervention in the Muslim World has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for radical Islamists.”  It notes that “Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather they hate our policies.”  

Policies such as our one-sided support of Israel against Palestinian rights, support for tyrannical governments in the region such as Saudi Arabia, and the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan which they believe “has not led to democracy” but “only more chaos and suffering.”  This all has “elevated the authority of the Jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims,” while turning “what was a marginal network” of extremists into a global phenomenon.

The common discourse on immigration and terrorism focuses its attention away from these true causes, and therefore the true solutions, and instead focuses on factors which are factually incorrect and motivated more by racial bias than by an adherence to the reality of the situation.

Falsely equating immigration with terrorism is reckless and damaging not only because banning migration would halt the “skills, knowledge, and perspectives” migrants bring “which stimulate technological innovation” and “the diffusion of new ideas and economic growth,” but as well because anti-Muslim bigotry and xenophobia actually increases the threat of terrorism rather than counters it.  

Haroro J. Ingram, researcher at the International Centre for Counterterrorism at The Hague, has concluded from his studies that “populist politicians in the United States, Europe, and Australia who seek political advantage with Islamophobic dog-whistle politics are actually doing more to boost the appeal of extremism than to counter it.” This is because “such rhetoric helps to intensify perceptions of crisis across Muslim communities and fuel the psychosocial conditions within which extremist propaganda tends to resonate.”  

In other words, this rhetoric plays right into the jihadists playbook, which seeks to portray the west as the enemy of the Muslim-world where Muslims will only find repression and brutality. It is these sentiments which are then used to recruit brutalized individuals into joining the jihad against the west.

An intelligent policy outline for combating terrorism would focus on addressing the primary domestic threat and the conditions from which it arises, while as well calling for a halt to the interventions and covert operations which fuel the spread of terrorism and deliver equipment and weapons into the hands of al Qaeda. It would not, for instance, further boost the appeal of extremism by attacking already marginalized communities while as well neglecting all of the real sources of the problem.

Steven Chovanec is a freelance journalist, independent geopolitical analyst, and writer based in Chicago, IL.  He is a student of International Studies and Sociology at Roosevelt University and conducts research into geopolitics and social policy.  His writings can be found at undergroundreports.blogspot.com, find him on Twitter @stevechovanec.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.