Trump vs. Obama Refugee Ban: 9 Things You Need to Know

By Samuel Smith, Deputy Managing Editor Monday, January 30, 2017

9. Three million refugees have been resettled in the U.S. since 1980 and none have killed American citizens.

Refugee youths gesture from behind a fence as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, EU Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans (all not pictured) arrive at Nizip refugee camp near Gaziantep, Turkey, April 23, 2016. | (Photo: Reuters/Umit Bektas)

The Trump administration's claim for why it needs to temporarily halt refugee resettlement is so that it can review the U.S.'s refugee resettlement process, which at the minimum takes 18 months for a refugee to clear.

Refugees' information and data must be vetted through databases at the State Department, FBI, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center.

Soerens explained that the current vetting process in place is actually quite "extreme."

"It's incredibly selective program to where if there are any doubts about someone's identity or their claims to refugee status or if there is a hint of concern that they might be a threat to public safety in the United States, they are excluded," Soerens said. "Since 1980, when the Refugee Act was passed, there have been about 3 million refugees that have come to the United States and zero American citizens have been killed in terrorist attacks perpetrated by any of those individuals, which is a remarkable record."

Additionally, The Wall Street Journal reports that the seven countries included in Trump's 90-day entry ban are not the main sources of terrorist plots on U.S. soil since 2001.

Only 11 of the 180 people charged with terror-related crimes in the U.S. who died before they were legally charged were from the seven countries impacted by the executive order.

"None of the 11 were identified as coming from either Syria, Libya or Sudan, and none of the 11 were involved in any major U.S. plot resulting in the deaths of Americans, including the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001," the report states.

However, WSJ also reports that "Of the 11 terror suspects who did come from one of the seven countries targeted by Mr. Trump's order, three were from Iraq, one was from Iran, two were from Yemen and five were from Somalia.

"Two of the 11 were involved in acts of violence. Iranian native Mohammed Taheri-azar was convicted after authorities said he intentionally struck people with an SUV at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, injuring nine, in 2006. Somali Abdul Razak Ali Artan carried out a knife rampage at Ohio State University in 2016, injuring 11 before he was confronted and killed by a police officer."