From 2000 through the end of 2015, 6,329 immigrants and non-immigrants were ineligible for visas because of terrorist activities or association with terrorist organizations (Figure 1). A full 99.5 percent of the denials were for terrorist activities. Keeping terrorists, criminals, and other national security threats out of the United States is one of the federal government’s important immigration responsibilities but many of the people denied a visa shouldn’t have been. An overly broad definition of providing “material support” to terrorists results in bans that make little sense and do nothing to defend Americans from terrorist attacks.

For example, a young man who was living with his uncle in Colombia was attacked by paramilitaries who then forced the young man to march for several days.  Along the way, paramilitaries shot and killed many of those in the man’s group. Often times he was forced to watch the executions and, at times, to dig the graves of the dead. Sometimes the man was told that it was his own grave he was being forced to dig. The government denied his attempt to settle in the United States because his forced digging of graves provided “material support” in the form of “services” to a terrorist organization. 

Another example is of a Liberian woman who was abducted, raped repeatedly, and held hostage by LURD rebels after they invaded her house and killed her father. During this time they forced her to cook, clean, and do laundry. She eventually escaped and is now in a refugee camp but her attempted resettlement in the United States was put on hold because the tasks she had done for the rebels, such as doing laundry, provided “material support” in the form of “services” to a terrorist organization. 

Those who are denied a visa for this reason can get an exemption based on their individual circumstances, whether the material benefit was knowingly or intentionally given to terrorists, for certain medical reasons, and on a group-by-group basis for those who aided foreign groups supported by the U.S. government. A full 55 percent of those who are originally denied a visa on terrorism grounds are eventually overcome for this reason. The high waiver rate shows just how unnecessary and arbitrary many of these visa denials are in order to prevent domestic terrorist attacks. 

Figure 1

Visas Denied for Terrorism and Those Overcome by Waivers

Source: State Department, Report of the Visa Office, Statistical Table XX https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/law-and-policy/statistics/annual-reports.html