Alex Nowrasteh Author Rss

The Terrorist Attack in Texas and the Threat from Abroad-Born Terrorists

Alex Nowrasteh — Thu, 27 Jan 2022 16:03:00 +0000

On the morning of January 15, 2022, Malik Faisal Akram kidnapped four people at the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. One of the captives was released by Akram, while the other three escaped. Akram was shot dead by FBI officers as they entered the synagogue. As it turned out, Akram's terrorist strike was a success, and no innocent persons were killed or injured. Even Nevertheless, the act carried out by Akram offers some important lessons and insights on the phenomenon of homegrown terrorism.

At the end of December, Akram presumably arrived in the United States under the Visa Waiver Program, although he may have also entered the country on a tourist visa. Most nationals of more than 40 countries are eligible for the Visa Waiver Program, which eliminates the need for a visa for short-term visits to the United States. For the Visa Waiver Program, 40 countries are included because they have low rates of illegal immigration, share security data with the U.S. government, and have similar economic development.

It's possible that Akram was not on the notoriously faulty terrorist databases because British intelligence studied him at some time but concluded that he was not a threat. The Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) system, which Visa Waiver Program passengers use to apply online for preapproval, certainly didn't stop Akram from flying here for this reason, one of several. In theory, Akram would have been flagged by ESTA's biographic background check, and it may have preserved records of his terrorist inquiry, unless he traveled on phony papers. In 2012, Akram was convicted of theft and harassment and sentenced to time behind bars.

Security and verification procedures are clearly not ideal. But because he hadn't been charged with any terrorist charges and had committed his previous crimes years ago, Akram should have been on the radar. The government is expected to strengthen ESTA in reaction to Akram's attack, but that is not going to be sufficient. The Department of Homeland Security will continue to implement policies that might have deterred some prior terrorists in order to combat future threats. However, if someone has not previously been involved in any criminal or terrorist activity, no screening mechanism can prevent him from entering the United States. This does not mean that travel should be prohibited, nor does it mean that the government should not employ cost-benefit-tested security measures; it just means that we should not hold ourselves to unrealistic standards.

Fortunately, Akram's strike did not result in any deaths. A total of 3,040 people were killed and 17,059 were injured in 198 terrorist acts on American soil between January 1, 1975, and January 15, 2022, all of which were carried out by foreign-born individuals. Injuries to the terrorists who carried out the attacks aren't included in those numbers. Thankfully, Akram's presence did not result in an increase in the number of terrorists or casualties. Terrorists who were born outside the United States had an annual probability of murdering someone in a terrorist act of roughly 1 in 4.4 million and an annual risk of wounding someone of around 1 in 775,000.

Out of the almost half a billion international visitors admitted under the Visa Waiver Program, thirteen terrorists perpetrated or attempted terrorist acts in the United States. For every 39 million people who enter a hospital, one terrorist gets admitted. When he carried out a religiously motivated assassination in Arizona in 1990, Glen Cusford Francis was the sole terrorist to enter the country via the Visa Waiver Program. Immigrating to Canada in the 1980s, Francis was granted Canadian citizenship, allowing him to visit the US without a visa.

In the United Kingdom, Akram was born. The Visa Waiver Program was used by all five of the terrorists born in the United Kingdom. The only people they've ever killed or hurt are themselves. Islamists made up four of the five terrorists, and the fifth plotted to kill Donald Trump in 2016 while he was running for president. Terrorists are known to suffer from mental health issues, and at least two of them appear to have had major issues.

Terrorist attacks like Akram's show that there are a few similar threads that go across them.

The first thing to keep in mind is that most terrorists fail to kill people. 143 of the 198 foreign-born terrorists who have carried out assaults since 1975, or 72 percent, have not killed anyone. Failure to kill was often a result of incapacity, indecision, or mental illness, as in the case of the Texans. It is not uncommon for terrorists to be motivated by a belief in a particular religion, ideology, or political ideology, but these beliefs appear to be associated with other traits that make murder less likely.

Terrorists, on the other hand, are more likely to attack Jews. With a few significant exceptions, foreign-born terrorists are less likely to target Jews. Terrorists who are natives of the United States are more prone to attack Jewish targets. Anti-persistence Semitism's into the third decade of the 21st century is a surprising fact, but we should expect it to continue.

Third, foreign-born terrorists seldom reach the United States through the illegal immigration channels. Despite the repeated warnings of Todd Bensman, most foreign-born terrorists are able to enter the country legitimately rather than illegally, despite this. Terrorists who entered the United States illegally have never murdered or wounded anybody on American territory. Akram found it simpler to fly into the United States via New York than it was to travel to Central America, cross Mexico on foot, and pay a smuggler thousands of dollars to be captured by Border Patrol in the Colleyville assault, which took place in Texas. Illegal immigration is a problem, but terrorism isn't one of the reasons to worry about it.

Fourth, there will never be a perfect way to evaluate and screen suspects in a terrorist investigation. There are much more non-terrorists screened out than terrorists, and that's a reasonable price to pay given the limited number of terrorists in the world and the potential harm they may cause. A certain degree of danger is necessary, no matter how unpleasant it may be for the victims.

Terrorism and immigration are intertwined, and it's critical that the government doesn't overreact or underreact to potential dangers. Overreactions are becoming more widespread in today's society. Because of Akram's anti-Semitic attack in Texas, we can see why terrorism is both terrifying and frequently ineffective.

What Happened to the 2.4 to 4.8 Million Missing Immigrants?

Alex Nowrasteh and Michael Howard — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 15:49:00 +0000

There are currently more job openings than unemployed people in the United States. An increase in legal immigration might help to alleviate the increased shortage of labor, but the existing situation is aggravated by a fall in the immigrant population's growth. Diane Swonk, Chief Economist at Grant Thornton LLP, recently tweeted a figure showing that 1.9 million additional immigrants would have populated the United States over the 2017–2021 period if net migration had continued to grow according to the Census Bureau’s 2016 estimates.Swonk's forecast is correct, but she is overly optimistic, as the reduction in immigrant population growth is likely to be considerably bigger.

We decided to replicate her results going back to 2008 using Census Bureau data and using her estimate for the increase in the stock of immigrants in 2021. Our results are in Figure 1. The yellow line shows the actual change in the net immigrant number (immigrants minus emigrants) annually, which increases sharply from 2010 to 2015, levels off in 2016, and then declines thereafter (Figure 1). We produced two counterfactuals.

The first is a mirror of Swonk's counterfactual, which represents the gray line and basically maintains the 2016 net migration pattern out to 2021. (Figure 1). During that time, we predicted a net increase of 2.4 million immigrants, whereas she estimated a net increase of 1.9 million.

The dashed grey line represents the continuation of the linear increasing trend from 2014–2015 through 2021 in the second counterfactual (Figure 1). In this counterfactual, an extra 4.8 million immigrants would have landed in the United States, assuming that net migration growth does not slow down in 2016 and does not fall thereafter.

All foreign-born residents, including legitimate permanent residents, naturalized Americans, those on temporary residence and work visas, and illegal immigrants, are included in the figures in Figure 1. The decline in net immigration is mostly due to the fall in legal immigration. In these counterfactuals where the net cumulative increase in the immigrant population would have been 2.4 million to 4.8 million higher, not all of the immigrants would have been workers. With an average labor force participation rate of about 64.5 percent in 2020, the increase in the net immigration numbers would have resulted in about 1.5 million to 3.1 million additional workers in the United States.

The radical decline in the growth of the immigrant population in 2009 and 2010 was due to the negative effects of the Great Recession and the passage of numerous state‐level immigration enforcement laws that prompted many illegal immigrants to leave the United States, reducing the increase in the immigrant population. The decline in the annual increase of immigrants since 2016 makes it look like the United States has suffered a prolonged period of slow growth or economic contraction.

Diane Swonk’s figure is a useful way to think about problems in the U.S. economy that have been exacerbated by the decline in immigration. Her figure paints a grim picture for immigration, but it is likely much worse than she estimates. The cumulative decline in the growth of the immigrant population over the 2016–2021 period is between 26 percent and 251 percent greater than she estimated.

When it comes to espionage, the Chinese Immigrants are an adversary

Alex Nowrasteh — Thu, 04 Mar 2021 17:23:00 +0000

Most Americans, former President Donald Trump, and now the Joe Biden administration, all view China as the greatest geopolitical threat to the United States. Avril D. Haines, Biden’s new director of national intelligence, recently said last month “When it comes to espionage, [the Chinese] are an adversary.” And the recent sentencing for conspiracy to steal trade secrets and wire fraud of Chinese‐born husband and wife team Li Chen and Yu Zhou seems to, at least on the surface, justify this fear.

Their conviction also seems to vindicate President Trump for creating the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) China Initiative in 2018 to counter a Chinese “economic blitzkrieg” to steal intellectual property, trade secrets, and technology to undermine the U.S. economy and national security. Espionage, it was said, is the primary tool the Chinese were using to attack the United States.

But how serious is this threat? Countries spy on each other daily; does Chinese espionage justify immigration restrictions placed by the Trump administration on all Chinese students and travelers? Does it justify going further by permanently limiting the number of Chinese students and Chinese immigrants, all while specifically keeping them out of STEM fields as Senators Cotton (R-AR) and Blackburn (R-TN) proposed? How about more radical changes in America’s foreign policy?

Despite its tough rhetoric, the federal government has released no systematic data on espionage or provided estimates about how serious of a threat it is.

A new paper published by the Cato Institute fills this gap. My research identifies 1,485 people convicted of espionage and espionage‐related offenses on American soil between 1990 and 2019. This doesn’t count people who hacked computers from abroad, just those who were caught engaged in any espionage or espionage related activity in the United States.

During that thirty‐year period, about 1 in 6.5 million people per year in the United States committed espionage or an espionage related crime. A total of 583 of these spies were native‐born Americans while the rest were foreign‐born or had unknown origins. Only 184 of them were from China.

The annual chance that somebody born in China would commit espionage was about 1 in 404,000 per year during that time. But Chinese‐born spies aren’t the only threat. Of the 1,485 identified, 276 spied for China. Of those, 171 or 62 percent, were born in China. Twenty‐four percent were American born, 7 percent were born in Taiwan, and the rest come from many different countries. And in only a third of the cases against Chinese‐born spies was the U.S. government the target of the espionage.

This means that, ultimately, native‐born Americans who are ethnically Chinese are less likely to be spies than their proportion of the population would suggest.

While rare, the most memorable recent instance of a Chinese national attempting to target American officials, which became known after my paper was finished, was of Christine Fang. She tried to “influence” many minor American politicians like Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Mike Honda (D-CA) in unspecified ways and to no apparent effect, other than possibly embarrassing her targets. Despite her apparent efforts, however, she wasn’t charged with espionage.

When it comes to those actually prosecuted, in two‐thirds of instances Chinese‐born spies stole economic secrets or intellectual property that were rarely related to national security. Xiaorong You, a Chinese immigrant, was indicted for stealing a formula for a new coating on the inside of Coca‐Cola cans. Chinese‐born Xudong “William” Yao was convicted of stealing secrets related to operating train locomotives. James Patrick Lewis, a native‐born American professor at West Virginia University, was convicted of fraud because he lied about his involvement with a Chinese program that may be tied to economic espionage. Li Chen and Yu Zhou, the husband and wife team mentioned above, conspired to steal trade secrets related to breakthroughs in pediatric cancer research—not national security secrets.

Those cases of economic espionage and theft of trade secrets simply do not rise to the level of an “economic blitzkrieg,” in the words of former attorney general Bill Barr. It is true that some instances are very serious, such as the case of American‐born John Reece Roth, who exported data on specialized plasma technology for use in drones that he had developed under a U.S. Air Force contract while a professor at the University of Tennessee. But Roth’s crime is the exception as most have no connection to national security.

Ultimately, the government should try to reduce espionage where practicable, but the national security establishment needs to justify its worry with systematic evidence. My research supplies such evidence and makes it clear that circumstances don’t justify Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s recent statement that China “poses the most significant challenge of any nation‐state to the United States.” I’ve shown my work. It’s time for those worried about Chinese espionage to show theirs.

President Trump Reduced Legal Immigration, Not Illegal Immigration

Alex Nowrasteh — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 15:23:00 +0000

President Trump also entered the White House with the goal of eliminating illegal immigration but Trump oversaw a virtual collapse in interior immigration enforcement and the stabilization of the illegal immigrant population. Thus, Trump succeeded in reduce legal immigration and failed to eliminate illegal immigration.

Figure 1 shows the monthly number of green cards issued to immigrants outside of the United States. In most years, about half of all green cards are issued to immigrants who already reside in the United States on another visa. Thus, the number of green cards issued to immigrants abroad is a better metric of the annual inflow of lawful permanent residents than the total number issued. Trump cut the average number of monthly green cards issued by 18.2 percent relative to Obama’s second term, but that average monthly decline hides the virtual end of legal immigration from April 2020 onward.

In response to the recession and the COVID-19 outbreak, President Trump virtually ended the issuance of green cards to people abroad. In the last 6 months of the 2020 fiscal year (April‐September 2020) the U.S. government only issued about 29,000 green cards. In the same period in 2016, the U.S. government issued approximately 309,000 green cards. Compared to the last half of FY2016, the number of green cards issued in the last half of FY2020 fell by 90.5 percent (please see note at the end of this blog post for how I estimated these figures).

Before the COVID-19 pandemic during the period from January 2017‐February 2020, the average number of green cards issued per month was only down about 0.5 percent under Trump compared to from January 2013‐February 2016 under the Obama administration with cumulative numbers down just over 3.2 percent. Beginning in mid‐to‐late March, the Trump administration virtually halted the issuance of green cards to people abroad. Without the COVID-19 immigration restrictions unilaterally imposed by the President, the issuance of green cards to foreigners abroad would have barely declined relative to the second term of the Obama administration.

Figure 2 shows the monthly number of non‐immigrant visas (NIVs) issued abroad. NIVs include tourist visas, work visas, student visas, and others that do not allow the migrant to naturalize. Trump cut the monthly average number of NIVs by about 27 percent relative to Obama’s second term, but that decline obscures the virtual end of NIVs from April 2020 onward.

As with immigrant visas, President Trump virtually ended NIV issuance in response to the recession and the COVID-19 outbreak. In the last 6 months of the 2020 fiscal year (April‐September 2020) the U.S. government only issued 397,596 NIVs. In the same period in 2016, the U.S. government issued more than 5.6 million NIVs. Compared to the last half of FY2016, the number NIVs issued in the last half of FY2020 fell by almost 93 percent (please see note at the end of this blog post for how I estimated these figures).

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, during the period from January 2017‐February 2020, the average number of monthly NIVs issued was down about 12 percent under Trump compared to the January 2013‐February 2016 period under the Obama administration and the cumulative numbers were down by just over 14 percent. Beginning in mid‐to‐late March, the Trump administration virtually halted the issuance of NIVs to people abroad. The COVID‐19‐related restrictions were the most severe and impactful part of Trump’s immigration policy.

Looking at the decline in the number of visas issued abroad under Trump through November 2020 compared to the second term of the Obama administration, Trump reduced the number of green cards issued by approximately 418,453 green cards and the number of NIVs issued by about 11,178,668. That’s a roughly 18 percent decline in the number of green cards issued abroad and approximately a 28 percent decline in the number of NIVs issued during Trump’s only term relative to Obama’s second term.

Although Trump succeeded in cutting legal immigration more than he initially planned, he oversaw the collapse of interior immigration enforcement. In 2020, the removal of illegal immigrants from the interior of the United States was the lowest as an absolute number and as a share of the illegal immigration population since ICE was created in 2003 (Figure 3). Trump failed to increase removals because local jurisdictions refused to cooperate with his administration, continuing a trend begun during the Obama administration in response to their deportation efforts. As a result, the population of illegal immigrants remained about the same as when he took office (Figure 4).

Note

Figures 1 and 2 are based on Department of State monthly visa issuance statistics. However, the numbers are estimates prior to March 2017 for immigrant visas and NIVs using the seasonal variations in the known years plus random variation added to make it look natural. I then checked the monthly results against he known annual totals and they are within 1 percent, so good enough or a visualization. This blog post is an expansion on work by my colleague David Bier where I add more monthly data.

Immigration Restrictionists Are Undermining American Institutions

Alex Nowrasteh — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 15:02:00 +0000

Benjamin Powell and I wrote our book Wretched Refuse? The Political Economy of Immigration and Institutions to address the argument that liberalized immigration will undermine the very American institutions that created economic prosperity that attracted immigrants here in the first place. Immigrants generally come from countries with political, cultural, and economic institutions that are less conducive to economic growth than those in the developed world. The fear is that they’d bring those anti‐growth institutions with them. Thus, as their argument goes, the estimated enormous economic gains from liberalized immigrants are a deadly mirage and immigrants could actually kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. As we assiduously document, immigrants do not bring those institutions with them and there is even evidence that immigrants improve institutions after they immigrate.

It’s ironic that the immigration restrictionists most worried about immigrants degrading American institutions are attacking those very institutions at every level. After President Trump lost his reelection bid, the most nativistic members of his party have embarked on a quest to reverse the election. A dozen Republican Senators, mostly those supportive of cutting legal immigration, plan to object to the certification of Biden’s win over Trump. Over 100 representatives could join in too. President Trump cut legal immigration more than any other president and he recently threatened Georgia election officials.

Immigration restrictionists have also attacked the institution of private property. The Trump administration has seized or is trying to seize 5,275 acres of privately owned land to build a border wall, most of it in Texas. Trump even diverted Congressionally appropriated funds from the military to build the border wall. Customs and Border Protection even took Congressionally appropriated funds intended to help asylum seekers and spent it on other items like dirt bikes in violation of the law. Florida saddled businesses and employees with an E‐Verify regulatory mandate that further erodes the freedom to contract.

Immigration restrictionists have also attacked some important components of our culture, such as respect for honesty. They’ve lied about the family member of a Georgia election official to cast doubt on his handling of the election. Many in Trump’s orbit are also conspiracy theorists or work with them at every opportunity. Making up stories to tarnish your opponents and believing in nutty conspiracy theories both break down trust in institutions, which is exactly what some nativists claim immigration does to the United States.

Some immigration restrictionists have also called for massive infringements on our civil liberties to keep President Trump in office. Retired General Michael Flynn even called for the president to declare martial law and for the U.S. military to re‐run the 2020 election, which alarmed Army officials enough to prompt them to declare that the military will not do that. They want to curb immigrant civil liberties, especially those of free speech, in order to preserve our institutions … except for free speech.

Many people are worried that immigrants will undermine American political and economic institutions. Our new book argues that they do not undermine economic and political institutions and that, even in some cases, they build them up. But immigration restrictionists continue to insist that immigrants represent a fundamental threat to our political and economic institutions. Like the babysitter in the famous urban legend, we just realized that the call is coming from inside the country. Immigrants are not the threat to our institutions, immigration restrictionists are.