The Data On Immigration & Terrorism Don’t Support Trump’s Travel Ban

The Trump administration on June 4, 2025,announced travel restrictionstargeting 19 countries in Africa and Asia, including many of the world's poorest nations. All travel is banned from 12 of these countries, with partial restrictions on travel from the rest.

The presidential proclamation, entitled Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats," is aimed at countries throughout the world for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a full or partial suspension on the entry or admission of nationals from those countries."

In a video that accompanied the proclamation, President Donald Trump said: The recentterror attack in Boulder, Colorado, has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry offoreign nationals who are not properly vetted."

The latest travel ban reimposes restrictions on many of the countries that were included ontravel bans in Trump's first term, along with several new countries.

But this travel ban, like the earlier ones, will not significantly improve national security and public safety in the United States. That's because migrants account for aminuscule portion of violencein the U.S. And migrants from the latest travel ban countries account for an even smaller portion, according todata that I have collected. The suspect in Colorado, for example, is from Egypt, which is not on the travel ban list.

Asa scholar of political sociology, I don't believe Trump's latest travel ban is about national security. Rather, I'd argue, it's primarily about using national security as an excuse to deny visas to nonwhite applicants.

Terrorism and public safety

In the past five years, the U.S. has witnessedmore than 100,000 homicides. Political violence by militias and other ideological movements accounted for 354 fatalities, according toan initiative known as the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, which tracks armed conflict around the world. That's less than 1% of the country's homicide victims. And foreign terrorism accounted for less than 1% of this 1%,according to my data.

The Trump administration saysthe U.S. cannot appropriately vet visa applicants in countries with uncooperative governments or underdeveloped security systems. That claim is false.

The State Department and other government agencies do athorough job of vetting visa applicants, even in countries where there is no U.S. embassy, according to an analysis by the CATO Institute.

The U.S. government has sophisticatedmethods for identifying potential threats. They include detailed documentation requirements, interviews with consular officers and clearance by national security agencies. And it rejects more than1 in 6visa applications, with ever-increasingproceduresfor detecting fraud.

The thoroughness of the visa review process is evident in the numbers.

Authorized foreign-born residents of the U.S. arefar less likelythan U.S.-born residents to engage in criminal activity. And unauthorized migrants areeven less likelyto commit crimes. Communities with more migrants - authorized and unauthorized - have similar orslightly lower crime ratesthan communities with fewer migrants.

If vetting were as deficient asTrump's executive order claims, we would expect to see a significant number of terrorist plots from countries on the travel ban list. But we don't.

Of the 4 millionU.S. residents from the 2017 travel ban countries, I have documented onlyfour who were involved in violent extremismin the past five years.

Two of them were arrested after plotting with undercover law enforcement agents. One was found to have lied on his asylum application. One was an Afghan man whokilled three Pakistani Shiite Muslim immigrantsin New Mexico in 2022.

Such a handful of zealots with rifles or homemade explosives can be life-altering for victims and their families, but they do not represent a threat to U.S. national security.

Degrading the concept of national security

Trump has been trying for years to turn immigration into a national security issue.

In hisfirst major speech on national securityin 2016, Trump focused on the dysfunctional immigration system which does not permit us to know who we let into our country."

Hisprimary examplewas an act of terrorism by a man who was born in the U.S.

The first Trump administration'snational security strategy, issued in December 2017, prioritized jihadist terrorist organizations that radicalize isolated individuals" as the most dangerous threat to the Nation" - not armies, not another 9/11, but isolated individuals.

If the travel ban is not really going to improve national security or public safety, then what is it about?

Linking immigration to national security seems to serve two long-standing Trump priorities. First is his effort tomake American more white, in keeping withwidespread bias among his supportersagainst nonwhite immigrants.

Remember Trump's insults to Mexicans and Muslims in hisescalator speech announcing his presidential campaignin 2015. He has also expressed a preference forwhite immigrants from Norwayin 2018 andSouth Africain 2025.

Trump has repeatedlyassociated himselfwithnationalists who view immigrationby nonwhites as a danger to white supremacy.

Second, invoking national security allows Trump to pursue this goal without the need for accountability, sinceCongressand thecourtshave traditionally deferred to the executive branch on national security issues.

Trump also claimsnational security justifications for tariffsand other policies that he has declarednational emergencies, in a bid to avoid criticism by the public and oversight by the other branches of government.

But this oversight is necessary in a democratic system to ensure that immigration policy is based on facts.

Charles Kurzman, Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.