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Fewer Leaving the U.S. to Join Terrorists, but Syrian Refugees Could Bring Terrorists Here

Top U.S. security officials say fewer are leaving the United States to join terrorist groups, but Obama's Syrian refugee resettlement program could bring terrorism to American shores.

GettyImages-493592602
GettyImages-493592602

Fewer Americans are traveling overseas to join extremist groups, but top security officials told Congress Wednesday that the Obama administration’s new quotas for the admission of Syrian refugees could allow terrorists to enter the United States.

Fewer Americans are traveling overseas to join extremist groups, but top security officials told Congress Wednesday that the Obama administration’s new quotas for the admission of Syrian refugees could allow terrorists to enter the United States.

Speaking to the House Homeland Security Committee Wednesday morning, FBI Director James Comey said six Americans traveled to join the Islamic State in the last three and a half months. He said that’s down from nine per month earlier this year.

“We’re starting to notice that curve, which was going up like a hockey stick, has flattened a little bit.… We are seeing fewer people attempt to travel to join ISIL in Syria,” Comey said, using an alternative acronym for the Islamic State.

However, Comey, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, and Nicholas Rasmussen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, all warned that President Barack Obama’s plan to resettle at least 10,000 Syrian refugees fleeing the civil war has a stark downside. They said it introduces the potential to allow terrorists to come to the United States because of the lack of information needed to fully vet those arriving on American shores.

“It is not a perfect process. There is a degree of risk attached to any screening and vetting process. We look to manage that risk as best we can,” Rasmussen said.

“We may have somebody who comes to us and is simply not on our radar for any discernible reason, and there may also be the possibility that somebody decides to do something bad after being admitted through the process,” Johnson added.

These comments only fed into Republican concerns about the refugee program.

“The president’s actions raise some real security risks at home,” Rep. John Ratcliffe, a Republican from Texas, told the panel. “There are some security gaps.”

Photo credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Correction, Oct. 21, 2015: Nicholas Rasmussen is the director of the National Counterterrorism Center; an earlier version of this article mistakenly said he was director of national intelligence.

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