What is the Citizenship Status of Terrorist Suspects in the United States?

Republican presidential candidates sparred over immigration during the 2015 primary debates, and in recent months, they linked that topic to terrorism. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul went back and forth over the issues in a Las Vegas debate on Dec. 15.

Paul accused Rubio of being soft on immigration, and hence soft on terrorism.

“The thing is, is that every terrorist attack we've had since 9/11 has been legal immigration. Marco wants to expand that,” Paul said. “I want more rules, more scrutiny. And to defend the country, you have to defend the border.”

Paul’s point, his staff said, was that the terrorist attacks caused by immigrants were carried out by people who came here legally.

Paul’s phrasing about the citizenship status of terrorists was confusing, so we decided not to rate it on our Truth-O-Meter. But we did want to look at the facts about the citizenship of terrorists who’ve attacked since Sept. 11, 2001.

It’s definitely wrong to state that all terrorist attacks were committed by immigrants, because there have been several notable attacks carried out by U.S. citizens.

There is considerable debate about how to define terrorism. Some attacks stem from jihadist beliefs related to al-Qaida, others seem to stem from complaints about the American political system.

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Right-wing terrorism comprises a large portion of terrorism in the United States, and it tends to be committed by Americans, said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“Of those, the vast majority don’t have a relationship to the immigration system,” he said.

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Read the full article here.