5 False Claims About Trump's Refugee Ban

By Samuel Smith, Deputy Managing Editor Monday, February 13, 2017

Kellyanne Conway makes up the 'Bowling Green Massacre'

Arguably the most egregious falsities in defense of Trump's executive order came from his advisor, Kellyanne Conway.

In an interview with MSNBC on Feb. 3, Conway made many scratch their heads when she tried to argue that former President Barack Obama banned refugees from Iraq for six months in 2011 after what she referred to as "the Bowling Green massacre."

.@KellyannePolls says that 2 Iraqi refugees "were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre."
(There was no such massacre.) pic.twitter.com/sD3Nnb5xfE
— Joe Sonka (@joesonka) February 3, 2017

Conway was incorrect on two fronts.

First, the Obama administration never halted the Iraqi refugee resettlement process. The Obama administration delayed refugee resettlement from Iraq for six months in 2011 to allow for extra screening measures for 58,000 Iraqi refugees applying for asylum status after it was discovered that Iraqi citizens living in Bowling Green, Kentucky, were attempting to send aid to al-Qaeda.

Second, there is no such thing as the Bowling Green massacre. The Iraqis accused of aiding al-Qaeda were arrested and later convicted on charges of aiding the terrorist group and helping the terror group carry out attacks on United States troops in Iraq.

Although Conway says she misspoke in her interview with MSNBC, she also referred to the Bowling Green Massacre in interviews with Cosmopolitan magazine and TMZ, The Washington Post reports.