The Terrorists Among Us: Rarely Mentioned Not-so-peaceful Refugees and Immigrants

Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

In the February 3 court hearing on President Trump’s executive order temporarily restricting admittance to the United States, Judge James Robart of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington State claimed there had been zero terrorist attacks from the seven nations (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) targeted by the executive order. Judge Robart asked Justice Department lawyer Michelle Bennett, “Have there been terrorist attacks in the United States by refugees or other immigrants from the seven countries listed, since 9/11?” When Bennett was unable to give Robart a response, he rephrased the question again, then stated, “Let me tell you. The answer to that is none, as best I can tell.”

Like many other public officials, journalists, and commentators, Judge Robart was repeating a false talking point that, having been endlessly repeated in the media, has become dogma with defenders of unrestricted migration and open borders. Many have erroneously taken Judge Robart’s claim to even more ridiculous heights, asserting the same claim not only for refugees and immigrants from the seven countries referred to in President Trump’s order, but claiming there have been no cases of terrorism committed by any refugees. We have listed below a fraction of the cases of terrorism and mass murder by Muslim immigrants from various countries, including those referred to in the executive order. In addition, there are many more Muslim refugees and immigrants who have been arrested and convicted of terrorism-related crimes, but who were apprehended and their plots foiled before they were carried out.

As we reported in our recent article “Trump’s ‘Muslim Ban’: Myths, Lies, and Censorship,” on February 11 the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) released the result of their extensive analysis of the government data obtained last fall by the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest. Contrary to the statements of the plaintiffs, the courts, and their media supporters, the CIS study shows that at least 72 terrorists were admitted to the United States from the seven dangerous countries. The countries and numbers are as follows:

• Somalia: 20
• Yemen: 19
• Iraq: 19
• Syria: 7
• Iran: 4
• Libya: 2
• Sudan: 1
Total: 72

Space and time allow us to provide here thumbnail sketches of only a few of the many examples that could be summoned to show the very real — and growing — danger that President Trump’s executive order was directed toward remedying.

Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the “Boston Marathon Bombers,” came to the United States from Kyrgyzstan as children with their family in 2002. The family entered the United States on a 90-day tourist visa and then applied for asylum, claiming a fear of deadly persecution if they returned to Kyrgystan. Dzhokhar became a naturalized U.S. citizen on September 11, 2012. The brothers planted bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring as many as 280 others. Tamerlan was killed in an ensuing gun battle with police. Following conviction on murder and terrorism charges, Dzhokhar was sentenced to death on May 15, 2015, and is currently a prisoner at the federal supermax prison, ADX Florence, in Colorado. According to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, he and his brother were radicalized through the Internet lectures of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born imam of Yemeni extraction, who was charged by the U.S. government with being a principal recruiter for al-Qaeda.

Dahir Adan went on a knife-wielding rampage at a mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota, on September 17, 2016. He stabbed 10 mall visitors before he was shot to death by an off-duty police officer. According to news reports and witnesses, he shouted “Allahu Akbar” and asked at least one victim whether he was Muslim. Adan’s family are Somalis, but he was born while they were living in Kenya. They moved to the United States as refugees and Adan became a U.S. citizen in 2008.

Abdullatif Ali Aldosary, an Iraqi refugee who came to the United States in 1997, was charged with detonating a homemade explosive device outside a Social Security Administration office building in Casa Grande, Arizona, in 2012. He was convicted and is serving a five-year prison sentence.

Abdul Razak Ali Artan engaged in a car-ramming attack and mass stabbing at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, on November 28, 2016. Thirteen students and staff members were injured before Artan was shot and killed by a campus police officer. Artan was a Muslim Somali refugee who had gained permanent-resident status. In an interview with a student newspaper, The Lantern, he claimed that Donald Trump was not “educated on Islam,” and complained that the U.S. media portray Muslims negatively.

Ahmad Khan Rahimi, the “Chelsea Bomber,” came to the United States in 2000, following his parents, who had claimed asylum here years before. In 2011, he received his U.S. citizenship. He is charged with a three-day bombing rampage (September 17-19, 2016) in which homemade explosive devices were planted in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, and Elizabeth, New Jersey. He was captured following a shootout that left Rahimi and three police officers injured. He is being defended by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and is awaiting trial on multiple charges.

Mohamed Barry, a Muslim immigrant from the West African country of Guinea, walked into Nazareth Restaurant, a Jewish-owned eatery in Columbus, Ohio, on February 11, 2016 and began attacking patrons with a machete. Four people were injured in the attack before Barry was shot and killed by responding police. He had arrived in this country in 2000 and had obtained his permanent-resident green card. Barry shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he attacked the restaurant patrons.

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a Somali refugee known as the “Oregon Christmas Tree Bomber,” was arrested in November 2010 for attempting to set off a bomb at the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in downtown Portland, which was attended by thousands of people. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison in October, 2014.

Ahmad Abousamra, allegedly a top computer whiz for al-Qaeda, is also said to be operating social media for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (also known as ISIS and ISIL). He is currently wanted by the FBI for conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, and other charges. He is now a fugitive and believed to be living in Syria. He was born in France but grew up in Boston, his father being a prominent physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. Although his family is Muslim, he attended Catholic schools and obtained a bachelor of science degree in computer science from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, in 2006.

Syed Rizwan Farook and Tafsheen Malik, the “San Bernadino Shooters,” armed themselves with multiple firearms and explosive devices, and the husband-and-wife terror team attacked an employee Christmas party at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernadino, California on December 2, 2015. They killed 14 people and wounded 22 others before they were themselves killed by police gunfire. The explosive devices they had set were not detonated, and were disposed of by the police bomb squad. Farook and Malik were described as “devout Sunni Muslims.” Farook was born in the United States of immigrant parents from Pakistan. He brought Malik into the country on a K-1 “fiancé” visa, the legacy of our overly generous “family reunification” program.

Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, the “Orlando Nightclub Shooter,” killed 49 people and wounded an additional 53 in a mass shooting at a homosexual nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on June 12, 2016. He was subsequently shot and killed by police responding to the scene of the crime. Mateen was born in the United States to Muslim parents who had fled Afganistan, and had expressed support for the Taliban and ISIL/ISIS, as well as claiming to co-workers that he had connections to Hezbollah.

Esar Met, a 27-year-old Burmese refugee of the Rohingya Muslim sect, represents a different kind of terror that is now stalking much of Europe and is increasingly becoming the norm in communities across the United States. In 2014 Met was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences, without the possibility of parole, for the kidnapping and brutal rape/murder of a seven-year-old refugee girl, Hser Ner Moo, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Utah’s chief medical examiner, Todd Grey, said the little girl suffered “excruciating pain during the ordeal from multiple injuries, before death. A report in the Salt Lake Tribune noted:

In an autopsy performed on April 2, 2008 — the day after Hser Ner Moo was found dead in a South Salt Lake basement apartment — Grey ruled that the sum of these injuries caused the child’s death:

The wound to the girl’s heart, a tear in its right atrium, was the most lethal.

“This would have been excruciating pain,” Grey said. “This was a homicide, a death due to an intentional action by another person.”

The child’s face was bruised a deep purple, with a scratch on her left temple just above her eye. The girl’s left forearm, which was broken in two places, was unnaturally bent at a near-right angle. Scratches and marks lined her chest, her back and her neck.

It was not clear how the child suffered such severe injuries, Grey said, but several were likely caused by a blunt object hitting or being pressed against her body. Marks around Hser Ner Moo’s neck suggested asphyxia, and Grey said it was possible that she was strangled.

Omar Mohamed Kalmio, a Somali refugee, has been convicted and sent to prison for the murder of four people. On January 28, Kalmio murdered his girlfriend, Sabrina Zephier, in Minot, North Dakota, then drove across town and shot to death Sabrina Zephier’s mother, Jolene Zephier; brother, Dillon Zephier; and Jolene Zephier’s boyfriend, Jeremy Longie.

Salam Al Haideri, 24, an Iraqi refugee, was convicted in 2014 in Albany, New York, and sentenced to five years in prison for viciously beating and raping a 19-year-old woman. His sentencing followed convictions in separate sex crimes in the Albany area for Walid Nehma, 30, an Iraqi refugee, and Salah Mhawesh, 34, an Egyptian refugee.

Although the politically/religiously motivated terror attacks receive the most headlines and news coverage, the kind of terror caused by rapists and murderers such as Esar Met, Salam Al Haideri, and Omar Mohamed Kalmio is more likely to be experienced by the average American, especially as thousands of more thugs are allowed to migrate into the United States as “refugees.” The pro-open-borders media censor much of the refugee-related crime from the news, preferring instead to deluge the public with non-stop, heart-string stories about refugee Muslim families meeting “welcoming communities.” However, the stories we have mentioned above are barely the tip of the iceberg. For more detailed information on the truly horrific terror-and-crime wave that is being perpetrated by the refugee and illegal alien tsunami, see here, here, here, and here.