More Terror Attacks, More Refugee Scapegoating
Two more terror attacks this weekend, one in Minnesota and the other in New York/New Jersey, have put the dangers of radical Islamic terrorism back on the front page. Coming on the heels of the Orlando mass shooting – the worst terrorist attack on the United States since 9/11 – the two attacks over the weekend were thankfully much smaller affairs. The knife attack in Minnesota resulted in 10 injuries, but no fatalities, and despite planting multiple devices in two different states, the attack in New York resulted in no fatalities and 29 injured, all of whom have since been released from the hospital.
It didn’t take long for the usual suspects to start casting around blame, and, as has been the case after many of these major attacks, the first people scapegoated were refugees. Donald Trump Jr., in an incendiary tweet, was the most visible of the refugee smearers.
Skittles didn’t take kindly to the graphic, reminding Trump Jr. that candy and people aren’t the same thing. Even ignoring the comparison of candy to people, this analogy is absurd on its face. Syrian refugees haven’t committed an act of terror resulting in the death of a single US citizen. Regardless of that, the analogy here fails completely because even if Syrian refugees were here plotting attacks on American citizens, their attacks would not result in the death of America. Hundreds of Americans die every day at the hands of their fellow citizens and that’s not destroyed the country – why would allowing a handful of women and children into the country to escape the devastation of the civil war in Syria put the success of America at risk?
It won’t. “Our Syrian refugee problem” doesn’t exist – there is no problem. Syrians aren’t the ones committing acts of radical Islamic terror in the United States. But that isn’t going to stop Trump or his sycophants from blaming refugees for every ill, raising the specter of massive terrorist attacks springing from refugee communities around the country as soon as ISIS says the word.
The most frustrating part of this inane debate is that by focusing all of our attention on refugees – where refugees and immigrants commit fewer crimes than native born citizens – we are missing one factor that links almost all of the U.S. attackers who have committed terrorist acts and had some link to radical Islam. They all came to the United States as children and were raised as Americans, then became radicalized as they grew older.
Take a look at the origins of the last handful of Islamic terrorists:
Boston Marathon Bombing – Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were born in Kyrgyzstan and immigrated to the United States at ages 8 and 17 respectively. Dzhokhar became a naturalized US citizen.
Chattanooga mass shooting – Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez was born in Kuwait to Palestinian-Jordanian parents and immigrated to the United States at age 6. He became a naturalized US citizen.
San Bernardino mass shooting – Rizwan Farook was a natural born U.S. citizen, born in Chicago and raised there. His wife, Tashfeen Malik, was the only one of these terrorists over the last two years who was foreign born and immigrated to the United States as an adult.
Orlando mass shooting – Omar Mateen was a natural born U.S. citizen, born in New York and raised in Florida.
Minnesota mass stabbing – Dahir Adan was born in Somalia and immigrated the United States at age 2, raised in St. Cloud, Minnesota. He became a naturalized US citizen.
New York/New Jersey Bomber – Ahmad Khan Rahami was born in Afghanistan and immigrated to the United States at age 7. He became a naturalized US citizen.
In almost every case here – the exceptions being Tamerlan Tsarnaev in Boston and Tashfeen Malik in San Bernardino – you had US citizens committing these acts of terror, and every single one of them was either born in the United States or came here so young and were raised here that they were effectively American. Tsarnaev was 18 and had his citizenship blocked, and Malik had a green card and came with her husband, then fiancee, at age 27.
Not one of them was an adult refugee, and none of their parents were refugees, either. Adan and Tsarnaev’s parents were asylees, who came to the US first and then petitioned to be allowed to stay. They were not like the Syrian refugees who were placed in the United States. Their parents self-selected to come here, which is not the case with refugees.
Instead of focusing on refugees and the inevitable “keep them all out” nonsense that is already spreading like a virus through social media, what we need to be asking ourselves is why these first generation Americans, raised in the United States and who went through the naturalization process, became self-radicalized and chose to attack their fellow Americans.
That is the pattern here – first generation Americans committing acts of Islamic terror, not refugee terror cells infiltrating the United States and committing pre-planned acts of terror.
That is the problem that needs to be studied and addressed, because that’s the one thread that is woven through almost all of these cases. Even after that study has been done, the likelihood is that there is no easy solution to this problem. It’s no easier to address than why so many Americans commit violent crimes, why they join gangs, why they commit acts of rape and murder every day. That’s not something Americans want to hear, and it certainly won’t fit on a bumper sticker or in a Tweet, but it’s reality.
We need to stop scapegoating refugees. They are not the ones committing these acts of radical Islamic terror. They are, more often than not, the victims of these attacks overseas and came here seeking peace and a chance to start over. They aren’t sleeper agents, nor are they poisoned skittles.
They’re people. They deserve to be treated with some dignity.
