Stop Blaming Refugees for the Attacks in Nice

By Justin Salhani, ThinkProgress

16 July 16

hursday evening as scores of people celebrated the 14th of July in Nice, France, a truck driver swerved into the crowd. At least 84 people were killed as a result and many more were injured. While certain political figures were quick to jump on blaming refugees, the attacker was identified by local media as a French resident.

After attacks in Paris, Brussels, San Bernardino, and Orlando, many political figures have used the opportunity to turn on refugees. But in each of these instances the attacker or attackers were often locals.

In the attacks in Paris in November 2015, police identified Salah Abdeslam, Brahim Abdeslam, Omar Ismail Mostefai, Chakib Akrouh, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, Samy Amimour, Foued Mohamed-Aggad, and Bilal Hadfi. All these men were French or Belgian citizens and were born in one of the two countries. While some of them are thought to have radicalized and then subsequently traveled to Syria, all had spent the majority of their lives in Europe.

Brussels attackers Ibrahim and Khalid El-Bakraoui and Najim Laachraoui were also European nationals. Laachraoui was born in Morocco but raised in Brussels while the El-Bakraoui brothers were Brussels born and raised.

San Bernardino attacker Syed Rizwan Farook was born in Chicago and lived and worked in San Bernardino as an environmental health specialist. His co-conspirator and wife, Tashfeen Malik, was not an American citizen but entered legally on a K1 visa for fiancees of U.S. citizens in July 2014 — more than a year before the attack.

In Orlando, the attacker was New York-born and Florida resident Omar Mateen.

Blaming refugees for terrorism is not only setting a dangerous precedent for some of the world's most vulnerable people, but it is also factually incorrect.

"It is factually wrong for blaming refugees for the very terror they are fleeing, and it is legally wrong because it violates our laws and the values on which our country was founded,” Cecillia Wang, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said.

The attacker in Nice was a Tunisian national who legally lived in Nice and was identified by local media as 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel.

To date, no refugees have been identified in any of the attacks in Europe and not a single refugee has been arrested in the United States for domestic terrorism since 9/11.

"The real problem here isn't refugees or migrants," Vox reported in March. "There's no reason to believe that refugees or foreigners are the source of these terrorist attacks, so keeping them out won't prevent further attacks. And even if fighters returning from Syria are a potential source of danger, they're citizens — even the most stringent immigration controls wouldn't keep them out."