Refugees and Terrorism in the West: Conditions that Exacerbate or Mitigate Attack Likelihood from Asylum Seekers, Analysis of Sweden and United Kingdom, Syrian Refugee Concerns, Political Impacts

This informative report from March 2019 has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. A key concern of the United States and Europe for accepting refugees is the perceived threat of increased vulnerability to terrorist attacks, especially concerning refugees from origin countries with a known presence of terrorist organizations. While studies have focused on refugee flows to specific countries, research is needed to identify and compare any correlation between refugees and an increased number of terrorist attacks in the receiving country. This thesis aims to analyze any correlation to determine if there is a positive relationship between receiving refugees and an increase in terrorist attacks, and evaluate conditions that may exacerbate or mitigate the likelihood of attacks as a result of accepting refugees.

This compilation includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

Nation-states have different policies toward accepting refugees as leaders struggle with balancing those policies and assuring their constituents. In recent years we have seen world leaders such as the United States strictly limit the amount of refugees it is willing to accept, while others such as Germany have opened their doors to accommodate vast amounts of refugees. A common concern highlighted in political rhetoric is that increasing the amount of refugees accepted increases the threat to security. For example, the 2018 National Strategy for Counterterrorism argues that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS, also known as Daesh) "has exploited weaknesses in European border security to great effect by capitalizing on the migrant crisis to seed attack operatives into the region," stating that "two of the perpetrators of the 2015 ISIS attacks in Paris, France, infiltrated the country by posing as migrants." Others argue that more open-door or humanitarian policies, such as that shown by Germany's Angela Merkel, actually "reduces the risk of her citizens being targeted by Middle East terror groups," whether it be by fostering a sense of inclusiveness or a result of direct actions taken by legitimate refugees against terrorists, as was done by Syrian refugees in Germany in 2016. The question, however, remains: does accepting an increased volume of refugees result in an increased number of terrorist attacks in the host country? If so, what are the conditions that may result in an increased amount of attacks or mitigate the incidence of attacks? This study strives to answer these questions.