A second internal Department of Homeland Security report questions the validity of President Donald Trump’s thwarted efforts to bar citizens of predominately-Muslim countries from entering the United States.
According to an exclusive report from The Rachel Maddow Show Thursday, DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis authored an assessment, dated March 1, that found most foreign-born extremists based in America are radicalized after they enter the U.S., not before. The assessment ― which tracked 88 violent, foreign-born extremists ― contradicts Trump’s plans to use “extreme vetting” to prevent potential terrorists from entering the country.
“We assess that most foreign-born, U.S-based violent extremists likely radicalized several years after their entry to the United States, limiting the ability of screening and vetting officials to prevent their entry because of national security concerns,” reads the report, which DHS verified as authentic to Maddow’s team.
The Huffington Post has reached out to the White House for comment, but DHS spokesman David Lapan confirmed the report’s authenticity. The assessment is used to inform law enforcement and vetting officials “on trends of foreign-born individuals engaged in terrorism activity in the Homeland,” he told HuffPost.
Lapan noted that the information is from open source materials and does not include classified data. “It does not include information from historical or current investigative case data or current intelligence or threat stream data from classified data sets,” he added.
The unreleased draft report is the second to be leaked over the past week. At the end of February, The Associated Press obtained another that stated citizenship is “likely an unreliable indicator of terrorist threat to the United States.” That report, compiled by the same DHS office, was prepared shortly after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked Trump’s controversial executive order.
Together, both assessments directly contradict Trump administration plans to bar potential terrorists from entering the U.S. through a temporary ban on those from seven Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The ban is currently stalled in the courts, but the White House has pledged to release a new executive order to replace it, though the date of such a plan has been pushed back several times.
The ban threatens the rights of millions of people. Many were detained at airports around the country in the week following its signing, including those with green cards.
Maddow offered a terse summary of the second DHS report at the end of her segment on Thursday.
“I look at this, and you know what I think? I think the Muslim ban is dead,” she said.
This article has been updated with comment from Lapan.
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