Research 

SORRY, TRUMP: MOST ISIS RECRUITS IN AMERICA AREN’T IMMIGRANTS, A NEW STUDY SUGGESTS

ASK SOMEONE TO close their eyes and picture a typical homegrown, American recruit for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Chances are the image that springs to mind is of a brown-skinned person with an immigrant background, likely with ties to the Middle East, South Asia, or North Africa. That image of the average accused terrorist might be out of date, a new study published by the Rand Corporation suggests. In the study, “Trends in the Draw of Americans to Foreign Terrorist Organizations from 9/11 to Today,” which sought to explore why ISIS has relative successes recruiting in the U.S., researchers found that in recent years the most common demographic profile for an accused terrorist motivated by “radical Islam” has been a native-born American, either white or African-American.

As the nature of terrorism changes — both ideologically and under the influence of new technologies like social media — the average “jihadi” in the United States is starting to look less like the type of person President Donald Trump wants to ban from the country. The finding has serious implications for immigration policies like the so-called Muslim ban, which posit terrorism as something naturally emanating from immigrant communities, particularly of Middle Eastern extraction.