81% of US-Charged ISIS Suspects Are American Citizens

Overwhelmingly 'Plotters' Were Born in US

Despite recent hysteria about the threat posed by Syrian refugees in the United States, leading to a House vote yesterday to effectively ban them from the country, the data shows those the US has arrested and charged in ISIS-related terror probes were overwhelmingly American citizens, and that a solid majority were US-born.

Of the 68 people indicted over ISIS ties, 81% (55) are American citizens. Of the 13 non-citizens, none came from Syria, and only three came to the United States as refugees, with the rest just ordinary immigrants. The rest came from Bosnia, Uzbekistan, Somalia, and Sudan.

Roughly two-thirds of all “suspects” indicated were born in the United States originally, reflecting the reality that despite the hype refugees amount for a virtually trivial portion of the “threat,” and that as with most countries, the real ISIS threat is them recruiting Americans who are already here, and may indeed have been born here.

The FBI has long touted its arrests of these putative plotters as proof of the strength of their anti-terror investigations, though even among the 68 indicted, only 10 have been convicted so far, and in many cases the prosecutions are faltering over lack of evidence of serious threats.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.