People From 7 Travel-Ban Nations Pose No Increased Terror Risk, Report Says
The Homeland Security secretary, John F. Kelly, echoed the president, saying the travel ban was necessary because vetting procedures "in those seven countries are suspect." But an internal report written by intelligence analysts at Mr. Kelly’s department appears to undercut the assessment
that people from the seven countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — pose a heightened threat of terrorism.
The Department of Homeland Security said the report was just a draft and "not a final comprehensive review of the government’s intelligence." Stephen Miller, a senior aide to Mr. Trump, told Fox News on Tuesday
that the redrawn executive order would "have the same basic policy outcome." The Trump administration on Friday also took the first steps toward following through on the president’s plan to build a wall along the border with Mexico.
The Department of Homeland Security assessment, first reported by The Associated Press, found
that only a small number of people from the seven countries had been involved in terrorism-related activities in the United States since the Syrian civil war began in 2011.
25, 2017
When President Trump signed an executive order last month temporarily barring visitors from seven mostly
Muslim countries, he said he was moving to protect the United States from terrorist attacks.
Furthermore, few individuals from the seven countries affected by the ban have access to the United States, the
report said, noting the small numbers of visas granted by the State Department to citizens of those nations.
The report also found that in the past six years, the terrorism threat reached much more widely than the seven countries
listed — individuals from 26 countries had been "inspired" to carry out attacks in the United States.
