I question the accuracy of that statement, not only that there were '0 refugees that have committed terrorist acts here' (in a strict interpretation of that statement) but also the spirit of that statement.
Reasons:
1) The Tsarnaev brothers.
Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev who were responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing.
In April 2002, the Tsarnaev parents and Dzhokhar went to the United States on a 90-day tourist visa. Anzor Tsarnaev applied for asylum, citing fears of deadly persecution due to his ties to Chechnya.In the U.S. the parents received asylum and then filed for their four children, who received "derivative asylum status" Five people died during as a result of the bombing and subsequent search for the two bombers. 280 were injured.
2)
Mohanad Shareef Hammadi and Waad Ramadan Alwan
These two former Iraqi insurgents participated in terrorist activities overseas and attempted to continue providing material support to terrorists while they lived here in the United States". Both men pled guilty to their charges and were sentenced to long terms in US prison. Both men had been admitted to the US as refugees and their prior participation in terror activities was missed in the screening process.
3)
Liban Haji Mohamed
Liban Haji Mohamed is a Somali-American man who came to the United States as a refugee. a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Somalia, is charged with providing material support and resources to both al-Qaida and al-Shabab, a Somalia-based terrorist organization. He is considered particularly dangerous because he worked to recruit other U.S. terrorists for al-Qaida and al-Shabab, the FBI said.
As of January 29, 2015 he was on the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorists" list:
4)
Hesham Mohamed Hadayet
Hesham Mohamed Hadayet was an Egyptian national who was responsible for the 2002 Los Angeles International Airport shooting. He immigrated to the United States in 1992, he arrived on a tourist visa but
claimed political asylum.[4] In Egypt he was arrested for being a member of Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, and Islamist group. He denied the accusation to U.S. immigration authorities. He said that he was a member of Assad Eben Furat Mosque Association, a group that aimed to "understand truly and apply Islamic law in the 20th century under any circumstances."[5] Despite these Islamist commitments,
he was given permission to live in the U.S. while his asylum application was pending. His asylum request was denied in 1995 but a letter notifying him was returned by the Post Office as undeliverable and no further efforts appear to have been made to locate and deport him. Two innocent people died and 4 others were injured as a result of this attack.
5)
Yassin Aref
Yassin Aref is an Iraqi Kurd who grew up in Iraq. He and his wife came to the US as UN refugees. He was convicted of participating in a plot with a man who said he was helping plan a missile attack on a Pakistani diplomat in New York City in 2004.
6) Anes Subasic
Anes Subasic is a a Bosnian refugee and a naturalized American citizen. He was a member of the
Raleigh jihad group. The Raleigh jihad group plotted a conspiracy to advance violent jihad, including supporting and participating in terrorist activities abroad and committing acts of murder, kidnapping or maiming persons abroad. According to the indictment, members of the group practiced military tactics and the use of weapons in rural North Carolina, and traveled to Gaza, Israel, Jordan and Kosovo hoping to engage in violent jihad. Anes Subasic was convicted and has a scheduled release date in 2035.
7)
Fazliddin Kurbanov
Fazliddin Kurbanov was a refugee from Uzbekistan. He fled there in 2009 and came to the US.
On August 12, 2015 he was found guilty of charges that he conspired and attempted to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and possessed an unregistered destructive device. His sentencing is scheduled in January.
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Listed above are examples of 9 people that came to the US as refugees and later committed terrorist acts. Granted that some of them came to the US before 9/12/2001, but some of them came after. That still does not change the fact that there are people who have come to the US as refugees and later went on to commit terror acts. I therefore call BS to the prior poster's statement.
In addition to the "refugee" scope of that statement, there have been terrorist attacks in the US committed by "immigrants".
A)
Nuradin M. Abdi
Nuradin M. Abdi was allowed to immigrate to the United States in January 1999. According to the detention motion, the Government will offer evidence that, with the exception of some basic biographical data, virtually all of the information Abdi submitted related to his immigration status was falsified. Abdi, along with admitted al Qaeda operative Faris and other co-conspirators, initiated a plot to blow up a Columbus area shopping mall. It is also alleged that in pursuit of this plot, Abdi received bomb-making instructions from one of those co-conspirators.
Abdi was convicted and sentenced to serve ten years in prison for conspiring to provide material support to terrorists
B)
Shahawar Matin Siraj
Shahawar Matin Siraj is a Pakistani-American who was convicted in 2006 of plotting to bomb the Herald Square subway station in Manhattan, New York. Siraj was arrested in 2004 and found guilty of terrorism conspiracy in U.S. v. Shahawar Matin Siraj (2006).[1] Siraj worked at an Islamic bookstore in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Over a period of several months in 2004 he was recorded by an FBI informer Osama Eldawoody plotting to plant a bomb in the 34th Street Herald Square station of the New York City Subway.[2] He was sentenced to 30 years in prison in January 2007
According to an article from
New York Magazine, Siraj entered the U.S. illegally in 1999. Though the cops arent certain, they believe he came across the border from Canada.
C)
Mohammed Mosharref Hossain
Mohammed Mosharref Hossain was an immigrant to the US from Bangladesh. He was involved in the plot with Yassin Aref (See #5 above). He was convicted of conspiring to aid a terrorist group, supporting a foreign terrorist organization, and money-laundering, and sentenced to 15 years in jail.
D)
Najibullah Zazi
Najibullah Zazi was born in Afghanistan in 1985. In 1992 his family emigrated to the US. He was arrested in September 2009 as part of the 2009 U.S. Al Qaeda group accused of planning suicide bombings on the New York City Subway system, and who pleaded guilty as have two other defendants. On February 22, 2010, he pleaded guilty to conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiring to commit murder in a foreign country, and providing material support to a terrorist organization. He said he was recruited by al-Qaeda in Pakistan for a suicide "martyrdom" attack against the U.S., and that his bombing target was the New York City subway system.
E)
Raja Lahrasib Khan
Raja Lahrasib Khan was born in Pakistan and emigrated to the US in the late 1970s. he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1988.
In June 2012 he was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison for attempting to send money to a terrorist with alleged links to al-Qaida
F)
Faisal Shahzad
Faisal Shahzad was born in Pakistan on June 30, 1979. He came to the US in 1997 to study at Southeastern University in Washington, D.C.He later studied at the University of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He was here on a student visa. He was later granted a H1-B visa for skilled workers. He was granted his green card in January 2006. He became a US citizen in April 2009. In 2009 he returned to Pakistan and while there did training in a camp on the use of bombs and weapons. He returned to the U.S. on February 3, 2010. On May 1, 2010 Shahzad was responsible for the attempted
2010 Times Square car bombing attempt.
On October 5, 2010, Shahzad was convicted and sentenced by federal judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum of the Southern District of New York to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole
G)
Farooque Ahmed
Farooque Ahmed was born in Lahore, palistan and became a U.S. citizen in 2002. Ahmed was arrested early on October 27, 2010. He was accused of scouting the Metrorail station in Arlington County, Virginia and recording video of the station on four different occasions. In July, he handed over the footage to an individual who he believed to be an operative of Al-Qaeda.[2] According to the indictment, he told undercover agents that an attack would cause most casualties between 4:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. and suggested placing the bombs in rolling suitcases. The plan of attack began as early as April 18, 2010, according to officials. He told also undercover agents that he would be ready to conduct jihad against America in January 2011 after completing Hajj in November 2010. At the time of his arrest, it did not appear that Ahmed had received any militant training overseas from Al-Qaeda or its associates. He told operatives that he was willing to martyr himself and had taught himself martial arts, use of firearms, and knife and gun tactics, skills he offered to teach others.
H)
Mohamed Osman Mohamud
Mohamed Osman Mohamud was born in Somalia in 1991, He came to the US and later became a naturalized citizen. He was arrested in an FBI sting operation on November 26, 2010, after attempting to set off what he thought was a car bomb at a Christmas tree lighting in Portland, Oregon. He was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. He was convicted and sentenced on Oct 1, 2014 to serve 30 years in prison.
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I could continue with further examples. There is a list of some of them:
HERE
US official have admitted that there are gaps in the screening process:
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper: I dont, obviously, put it past the likes of ISIL to infiltrate operatives among these refugees, so thats a huge concern of ours,
FBI Director James Comey added in congressional testimony last month that a number of people who were of serious concern slipped through the screening of Iraq War refugees, including two arrested on terrorism-related charges. Theres no doubt that was the product of a less than excellent vetting, he said. Although Comey said the process has since improved dramatically, Syrian refugees will be even harder to check because, unlike in Iraq, U.S. soldiers have not been on the ground collecting information on the local population. If we dont know much about somebody, there wont be anything in our data, he said. I cant sit here and offer anybody an absolute assurance that theres no risk associated with this.