“Nearly 3 in 4 individuals convicted of terrorism-related charges are foreign born.”

27 JAN 18 - His 9th executive order on immigration.
Previous orders have been overturned by the courts.

On January 16, President Trump tweeted that “nearly 3 in 4 individuals convicted of terrorism-related charges are foreign born.” That part is true but misleading; a half-truth, perhaps.

DoJ and DHS reported for the 15 years between 9/11/2001, and 12/31/2016, 549 people were convicted of international terrorism-related charges in U.S. federal courts, and 402 of them were foreign born.  Nearly 3 in 4. 

There's a problem, though.   There are approximately 41 million foreign-born people living in the United States.  Those 402 out of the 41 million are a miniscule proportion - less than 0.0000001 percent.  If an individual is foreign-born, the likelihood that the person has or will engage in terrorism-related activities is nearly zero.

It's perhaps easy to cherry-pick the stats you need to support a particular position.

Those foreign born individuals convicted of terrorism-related charges since 9/11, those are convictions, not deaths.  (Deaths by terrorists on U.S. soil were 61 for post-9/11 through 2014.  The count includes both foreign-born and domestic perpetrators.)

White nationalists and right-wing extremists killed 5 times that number, but they're not 'terrorists'.  Extremists, yes; terrorists, no; but they killed five times as many as the terrorists did.  There's little difference among extremists.  

So, what about all those refugees?

When it comes to terrorist acts by refugees, the numbers are unequivocal. In the four decades between 1975 and 2015, only 20 individuals who arrived in the U.S. as refugees either attempted or carried out a terrorist attack - resulting in three deaths. All three of those killings were by anti-Castro refugees back in the '70s.

Not a single death has resulted from terrorist activity by a Muslim refugee.  Not one.
(No person accepted to the United States as a refugee, Syrian or otherwise, has been implicated in a fatal terrorist attack since the Refugee Act of 1980.-- CATO Institute)

Conversation in the public arena, particularly regarding refugees, those millions displaced from their homes and livelihood, has been uninformed and unreasonable.  The hatred and mistrust generated within our own culture are immense as even legal residents are now treated prejudicially.

Citing that “3 in 4” terrorists are foreign born falsely suggests that excluding the foreign born would substantially reduce a large threat to this country.  Unequivocally, that is a false representation.  And at what cost?  How many of the 41 million lives of immigrants and refugees should we disrupt and ruin to further reduce an already minuscule threat? Let’s not use statistical lies to destroy lives.

While I'm inclined to agree with this administration on a number of issues, this isn't one of them.  The correct focus is vetting before entry and deportation of criminals, of course, and the processes are being reviewed and improved.  Meanwhile, the political rhetoric against the foreign born has been destructive and culturally destabilizing.  In all, the harm has far exceeded whatever good that may have been accomplished.

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References: (White House Report) (Ploitico: Terror Statistics) (UMD Study: American Deaths in Terrorist Attacks) (Business Insider: How likely are foreign terrorists to kill Americans?) (CATO Institute, Policy Analysis No. 978)

Discussion: (Snopes: Who is More of a Threat: Far-Right or Muslim Extremists?) (POLITIFACT, A look at the data on domestic terrorism and who’s behind it)