Despite the traction those arguments have gained, it makes little sense for an aspiring terrorist to apply to enter the United States as a refugee. Passing through the process often takes at least 18 months, and sometimes much longer.
Applicants must pass background checks involving several U.S. government agencies, and many applicants are rejected. Overall, refugees are unlikely to be resettled at all -- the UN Refugee Agency says that only about
1 percent of the world's refugees end up being taken in permanently elsewhere.
Stephen Legomsky, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis and former chief counsel for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,
said in a news release that all these factors make it very unlikely that members of the Islamic State group planning to attack the U.S. would apply as refugees.
“[Refugees] are personally interviewed and thorough background checks are performed by Homeland Security and the FBI,” Legomsky said. “No competent terrorist would choose the U.S. refugee process as a preferred strategy for gaining entry into the U.S.”
Much of the concern about possibly admitting terrorists as refugees stems from the fact that one of the Paris attackers was found holding a Syrian passport that had been stamped at a Greek port of entry -- indicating that he’d traveled to Europe as part of the wave of hundreds of thousands of other migrants seeking refuge in Europe from violence in the Middle East and South Asia. But French authorities said Monday that the
passport was forged, making it unclear whether the man, identified as Ahmad al-Mohammad, posed as a migrant to enter Europe or carried the faked passport to
confuse authorities.
Whatever the case, the notion that admitting refugees increases the risk of terrorism rests on shaky foundations. The attackers who have been identified so far were from
either France or Belgium, not Syria.
And if they had wanted to come to the United States, they wouldn't have had to do much more than buy a plane ticket. Only two of them would have been flagged by French authorities, according to CNN. Those who didn’t appear on European security watch lists and who held passports from countries included in the visa waiver program would have traveled straight to the U.S., like any other tourist. ISIS isn't short on fighters with European passports, either -- U.S. intelligence officials estimated earlier this year that 3,400 foreign fighters had joined the group from Western nations.
