Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute is the analyst of immigration that I most turn to when wanting to know the facts. So I was excited to see that he testified last week on the topic “Terrorist Entry Through the Southwest Border.” I should have anticipated what I learned while watching: he was the expert called by the Democrats on the committee, not the Republicans.
The whole 2 hours plus is worth watching if you click on “transcript” so that you can jump through a lot of stuff. It also helps to go at 1.25 speed. By doing both, I was able to watch it in just under 1 hour.
What struck me was that Alex was the most prepared to talk about the issue, not of illegal crossings but of crossings by terrorists on their way across the border to commit terrorist acts in America. His bottom line is that the probability of being murdered by a terrorist crossing over the southwest border is very close to zero. In their questions, Republican congressmen and congresswomen tried to shake him, but were unsuccessful. They kept changing the subject to issues like murders and rapists crossing the border or terrorists over in other countries killing Americans. He kept insisting on talking about what the hearings were supposed to be about.
My assessment of Republicans in Congress has not been this low in a long time. One Congressman in particular disappointed me: Chip Roy of Texas. A few elections ago, I had asked a fairly libertarian friend in Washington who follows politics closely whom I should donate money to in a close race. His first choice was Chip Roy. When I checked his campaign contributions, I learned that they were about $10 million, so my $200 or $25o would likely have about the same impact that a vote in Roy’s district would have. So I didn’t contribute. I’m glad.
Chip Roy goes after Nowrasteh on an issue that has nothing to do with terrorist entry through the Southwest Border and starts shouting at him.
Some highlights.
52:00: Alex’s testimony. It goes to 56:30.
1:02:09: Rep. Biggs claims that Alex’s testimony is “asinine” and also claims that we have open borders.
1:08:08: Good back and forth between a calm Rep. Jayapal (D-WA) and Alex. Goes to about 1:12:27. Notice how Alex, at the 1:11:24 point, gets at one of the drivers of immigration: “Guatemalans Hondurans Salvadorans Colombians and others fleeing dangerous despotic socialists poor cruel regimes.” I loved watching him say this to Rep. Jayapal, for obvious reasons.
1:18:07: Good back and forth between Rep. Nadler (D-NY), whom I’ve never been impressed with, and Alex. Goes to about 1:23:54. Alex makes a good point at about the 1:23:41 point–if we have an open border, why do people pay smugglers between $5,000 and $20,000 to get across.
1:23:54: Chip Roy (R-TX) starts lambasting Alex, getting really angry at him, and changing the subject away from terrorism. Alex tries to get the subject back on track but Roy gets increasingly angry and gets confused at the 1:26:28 point where he says, “I’m answering the questions here.” Actually he was supposed to be asking them, but this was a rare moment of honesty on Chip Roy’s part.
1:41:49 and ff: Rep. Correa (D-CA) gets all 3 of the Republican-called witnesses to admit that they would deport 10 million illegal immigrants.
1:46:18: Rep. Van Drew (R-NJ) accuses Alex of sitting in his office looking at numbers rather than talking to people at the border. Parenthetically, what I notice in almost all the Republican Congressmen is that they sound like the Democratic Congressmen I saw in action during my time in the Reagan administration, from 1982 to 1984. They use emotional arguments and attack people who present facts.
1:58:11: Alex gets into the data on the very small risk.
1:59:00: Alex draws on the other witnesses’ points about smuggling humans to make his case for expanding legal immigration.
2;08:50 and ff: Chairman Tom McClintock (R-CA), whom I have heard and seen good things about over his entire career–he’s one of the most libertarian members of Congress–tries to switch the subject to terrorism in Afghanistan. When Alex calls him out, McClintock accuses Alex of “playing dumb.” No, it’s just that Alex was under the mistaken impression that the hearings were about terrorist entry through the Southwest border.
READER COMMENTS
Fazal Majid
Sep 18 2023 at 9:23am
For all the flaws in the US criminal justice system, it’s still way easier and less risky for a murderer or rapist to ply his trade in Mexico/Guatemala/Honduras/El Salvador. Why would they move to the US?
As the old lawyer’s saying goes, if you have the facts on your side, bang on the facts. If you have the law on your side, bang on the law. If you have neither, bang on the table.
Matthias
Sep 19 2023 at 7:37am
Most people are not career criminals.
Someone who committed a murder once is a murderer, but might still want to come to the US for the same reason many other people want to come: economic opportunity.
(And that person might murder again.)
A career criminal might also still want to come to the US; because even if you assume that the chance of getting caught is higher in the US, the increased economic rewards from crime in the US might be enough to make up for that.
Just to be clear: I do agree with the point your are arguing for. I just don’t think your argument is a good one.
Thomas L Hutcheson
Sep 18 2023 at 10:53am
“My assessment of Republicans in Congress has not been this low in a long time.”
Par for the course as far as I can tell, although immigration may be the issue on which Republicans fall the farthest below the also pretty low level of Democrats.
David Henderson
Sep 18 2023 at 11:14am
It’s important to note, though, that your and my criteria probably differ a good bit. I would bet that there are things they’ve done that I like that you dislike and vice-versa.
Thomas L Hutcheson
Sep 20 2023 at 7:51am
A safe bet. 🙂
Emily
Sep 18 2023 at 11:09am
Arguments about “the probability of being murdered by a terrorist crossing over the southwest border is very close to zero” *are* asinine. First, if we brought in 1,000 people we absolutely knew had murdered people, the probability I would be murdered by of them would still be close to zero, both because the United States is huge and a lot of people who have murdered someone don’t murder again. It would still be a bad policy. Second, people take a lot of actions to avoid being murdered (or being victims of other kinds of crime), and those have costs to them — that’s part of the equation here for how crime is harmful. Third, terrorism specifically is enormously destabilizing for society, in part because of the difficulty of reducing your chances of being a victim.
If there were a convicted murderer up for parole, it would be really weird if someone’s argument were “the probability of you [say, random human being on the parole board] being murdered by this guy is basically zero”. “It’s super unlikely this guy is going to kill you!” I could grant that, and I would still not find this a persuasive argument!
How about instead — what evidence could we see that would make Alex concerned? And how to handle the fact that there’s a tail risk component? If we’re letting in someone now is going to do major terrorism in 5 years vs. if we’re not — what would evidence look like now that would let us distinguish between those states of the world?
David Henderson
Sep 18 2023 at 11:52am
You missed his point. Alex is saying that the probability of anyone being murdered is low.
Emily
Sep 18 2023 at 12:49pm
Then your language was imprecise and misleading. But if the argument is that “the probability of *anyone* being murdered by a terrorist crossing over the southwest border is very close to zero, we’ve moved from that being a mundane and unhelpful claim to a claim that should actually require a lot of evidence, and I reiterate my question: “If we’re letting in someone now is going to do major terrorism in 5 years vs. if we’re not — what would evidence look like now that would let us distinguish between those states of the world?”
Also, is it just terrorism-murder or regular murder that’s been claimed about here? Because if it’s regular murder, and the claim is that it’s very unlikely that anyone coming over is going to do regular-murder, I think that’s an extraordinary claim.
Or is this actually a claim the *percentage* of terrorists coming over is basically a rounding error?
Jon Murphy
Sep 18 2023 at 1:16pm
Emily:
Note that the question you’re asking is irrelevant to Alex’s point.
If we know that someone is going “to do major terrorism,” then the probability isn’t virtually 0, it’s 1 assuming no actions were taken to stop this individual. But seeing as plotting a terrorist attack is a crime, in your scenerio the probability is actually 0.
But we do not know that information. We’re in a world of uncertainty. Consequently, we have to look at probabilities of all people coming over the border and all potential deaths from terrorist activities of those people. That number is virtually zero.
Mark Z
Sep 19 2023 at 10:59pm
If the fraction of people immigrating that are murderers is lower than the fraction of the general population that are murders, then, all else being equal, you’re probability of being murdered *decreases.* The absolute number of murders is meaningless. The frequency with which the immigrants commit murder relative to the native population is what matters for immigration’s affect on safety for people already living here.
Monte
Sep 18 2023 at 1:19pm
Which doesn’t mean that we need not be concerned about terrorists or those linked to terrorist organizations who might exploit vulnerabilities at the southern border. Near zero – even zero – probability events can still happen. The fact remains that many of our resources have recently shifted away from counterterrorism efforts and have been reallocated towards perceived threats from China and Russia in the face of unprecedented mass migration from 150 different countries around the world.
FBI Director Christopher Wray, at a congressional hearing last July, said “From the FBI’s perspective, we’re seeing all sorts of very serious criminal threats that come from across the border.”, which is becoming more of a priority for the FBI.
As is usually the case, dividing the hyperbole on both sides by 2 will help us find the middle ground upon which we can continue to address the issue of illegal immigration.
Jon Murphy
Sep 18 2023 at 1:24pm
One can be concerned about a threat, but one must also be reasonable about it. Merely invoking some percieved threat without understanding it is nothing more than invoking the boogeyman to explain weird bumps in the night. Yes, it could be a supernatural predator, but it’s more likely the racoons have gotten into the trash cans again because your neighbor didn’t probably close the lid.
Monte
Sep 18 2023 at 6:10pm
You’re seriously equating the probability of a terrorist crossing our southern border and perpetrating a crime with that of a boogeyman causing bumps in the night? One might argue the difference between the probability of a very real vs imaginary threat is orders of magnitude greater.
I agree that understanding is key in dealing with the issue in a reasonable way. The UNCCT’s Border Security and Management (BSM) programme seems like a reasonable enough response to me. Beyond that, the larger threat is posed by those who are classified as “gotaways” and Nowrasteh’s data doesn’t control for that. Former Border Patrol Chief Ron Vitiello in a recent interview stated “The real risk is the people who can pay enough, who are smart enough, to get through.” A bomb in the night is a helluva alot scarier than a bump in the night.
Jon Murphy
Sep 18 2023 at 6:54pm
I am. Both have roughly the same probability and the same tail.
Monte
Sep 18 2023 at 6:58pm
Tell that to the surviving family members of the 9/11 victims and those Americans who are deeply concerned about the possibility of another terrorist attack. I’m sure that will pacify them.
Jon Murphy
Sep 19 2023 at 8:44am
I, and I am sure many others, who have lost loved ones and friends to terrorism are well aware of the odds.
Thomas L Hutcheson
Sep 20 2023 at 7:56am
Cost benefit analysis. Are there cost effective measures that should be taken to further reduce the probabilities of a terrorist entering across the Southern Border. None have been put forward AFAIK.
Monte
Sep 20 2023 at 12:26pm
Not exhaustive and a bit dated, but here’s a CBA of U.S. Homeland Security Spending that was conducted by the University of Newcastle in 2009. Their results indicate that the costs outweigh the benefits. Some concluding remarks:
steve
Sep 18 2023 at 3:21pm
Congressional hearings are too often a waste of time. Many of the “experts” really arent experts. Both Democrats and Republicans, depending on who they are questioning, ask poor questions aimed at scoring points or to praise/suck up to the “expert” saying what they like. If you have expertise on the topic being covered it can be pretty painful listening to either the fake experts or the know nothing politician going after someone with real knowledge. Expertise is often nuanced and politics not so much. Wife and I arent convinced there is any current politician worth sending money to support. We might be convinced to donate money to oppose someone.
Steve
David Henderson
Sep 18 2023 at 3:31pm
I agree with you. In this case, though, Alex Nowrasteh really is an expert and both Jayapal and Nadler did a good job of giving him softballs so he could share that expertise.
Matthias
Sep 19 2023 at 7:41am
If you have money to spare, I suggest looking at whatever charities GiveWell recommends, before you think about giving to any political cause..
steve
Sep 19 2023 at 1:20pm
We believe in tithing which we divide about half between our church and half between charities. We do use GiveWell. I also have a good circle of friends and acquaintances where I can get personal viewpoints on individual charities. I have even called a couple of them (charities) to ask questions. I find it sort of odd that people will spend an hour looking at the pros and cons of a different kitchen gadget costing a few hundred dollars but not do the same when making a charitable or political contribution.
Steve
Monte
Sep 18 2023 at 10:34pm
Some on this forum seem to hold up Nowrasteh as the leading expert on immigration and crime statistics when, in fact, his data has been challenged and disputed by other experts in the field, so it’s not like his conclusions should be considered the gospel truth.
By Nowrasteh’s own calculations, the chance of Americans being injured by a foreign-born terrorist prior to 9/11 were 1.35 million. After 9/11, that chance diminished to 1 in 15.6 million. If another does occur, we can expect the limit to approach zero even more. The bottom line being that even a zero-probability event is possible. So we can’t just ignore the issue and open our borders to what will become a land flowing with milk and honey, as Caplan, Nowrasteh, and other open borders advocates would have us believe.
Matthias
Sep 19 2023 at 7:47am
The US used to have lots of domestic terrorism as well. Would that make you recommend deporting all citizens as well?
If not, why not? Is the issue perhaps a bit more nuanced?
I suggest perhaps figuring out what an appropriate cost of a statistically human life is. You could do worse than use the figure used to decide what safety features of American roads are worth building.
In any case, just take whatever you can come up with, multiply it by the expected number of terrorist victims, divide by the number willing immigrants and charge them that as a fee to enter the country.
Perhaps multiple the fee by ten times or so, so you can feel like you are turning a profit.
Either distribute the proceeds amongst all voters, or save them up and pay them out the victims of potential future terrorist attacks (and/or their designated loved ones who will be left behind.)
Monte
Sep 19 2023 at 11:32am
We do, in fact, have more to fear from domestic terrorists than we do from foreign terrorists, but that’s irrelevant to any discussion about open borders. We must remove our own warts, of course, just not add to them.
That said, the Director of National Intelligence’s Global Trends website informs us of the following:
These are discomforting facts and inconsistent with the opinion that Americans have nothing to fear but fear itself when it comes to illegal immigration.
I agree that we need to put numbers on the issue and erect a security apparatus that effectively screens for criminal elements. But Nowrasteh is on record as supporting open borders and that attitude, IMO, prejudices his analysis against a more suitable response to the threat of foreign terrorists.
Jon Murphy
Sep 19 2023 at 8:47am
Monte-
These kind of hysterical arguments are precisely why we need to put hard and fast numbers on the issues of terrorism.
Dylan
Sep 19 2023 at 10:22am
I want to state upfront that I’m basically an open borders guy. I favor making it vastly easier to immigrate, but lacking legal means to do so, I’m not that concerned with people finding other ways to get here.
Still, I think it is important to recognize that
putting these kinds of numbers up are hard to do in any kind of counterfactual way. How much of the incredibly low risk of an American dying because of a terrorist crossing the Southwest border is due to the current level of enforcement? What’s the appropriate counterfactual?
Jon Murphy
Sep 19 2023 at 11:33am
Counterfactuals are always difficult. Fortunately, we have centuries of differing levels of enforcement of immigration in general and the SW border in particular. It turns out the counterterrorism efforts have had virtually no effect.
Monte
Sep 20 2023 at 11:40am
“It turns out the counterterrorism efforts have had virtually no effect.”
Jon, this comment seems outrageous on its face. Can you cite evidence of this claim? It’s hard for me to believe that in the absence of all resources dedicated to U.S. counterterrorism efforts post 9/11, we’d be no worse off today.
Jon Murphy
Sep 20 2023 at 1:45pm
I am running off to class, so I cannot provide detailed citations, but the TSA and Homeland Security routinely report how little they’ve stopped terrorism.
David Henderson
Sep 20 2023 at 3:24pm
I think Monte is right because he took you literally. Those expenditures have had an effect: they have made us poorer and less free. I think you meant that they’ve had no benefit.
Monte
Sep 20 2023 at 4:41pm
David,
Based on the available evidence, I can accept that the costs (including certain freedoms) of U.S. counterterrorism efforts undertaken since 9/11 have exceeded the benefits, but how you can claim there have been no benefits? For example, there’s this:
There are other studies I could cite. But I’d welcome any evidence you can provide that might prove otherwise?
Jon Murphy
Sep 20 2023 at 4:50pm
Monte-
I, for one, would cite that very study you just presented.
Exactly 0 of the 50 were stopped by TSA or Border Patrol on the SW border. Most were tracked using already established (pre- 9/11) police methods.
Jon Murphy
Sep 20 2023 at 4:54pm
We always have to be careful of bear tax reasoning.
Monte
Sep 20 2023 at 5:26pm
This part of the same study appears to contradict your claim:
David Henderson
Sep 20 2023 at 5:50pm
I didn’t claim that there were no benefits. I think it’s Jon who did.
Monte
Sep 20 2023 at 5:58pm
I’m still waiting for royalty checks from the producers for using my character to create Homer Simpson. But…we invite bears or terrorists by ignoring them.
Jon Murphy
Sep 20 2023 at 7:31pm
No it doesn’t. It doesn’t address my claim at all.
Correct. I am arguing that the TSA and border patrol have not created any benefits in the form of reducing terrorism* and rather led to enormous costs.
*There are, of course, substantial benefits to the military-industrial complex.
Jon Murphy
Sep 20 2023 at 7:34pm
As an aside, I do disagree with the claim you show in the Heritage report about the effectiveness of the PATRIOT Act. I would, again, cite evidence provided in the report as well as how the Act has been expanded and abused during COVID to target various non-terrorist groups and protestors including (but not limited to) BLM, anti-lockdown, “election deniers,” and the like.
Monte
Sep 20 2023 at 10:09pm
Your response is incredulous. Actions put into play by the Patriot Act involved the TSA, border security, and a host of other government agencies who, through their coordinated efforts, prevented a number of terrorist attempts. According to this study, that’s indisputable:
Whether or not the act has been abused or the costs justifiable is a different matter. But I do find it amusing that you’re suggesting the authors of the study have disproven their case.
Andre
Sep 19 2023 at 10:28am
If terrorism from southern border crossings is the concern, then the fact that we don’t have an example yet doesn’t mean the concern isn’t valid. The notion that our borders aren’t wide open is laughable A porous border with 1-2 million walking into the country annually seems like a pretty good opportunity for terrorists to enter – whether they have yet done so or not. Claiming otherwise makes no sense. It’s an appeal to the status quo.
9/11 was unthinkable until it happened and we have spent the last generation exposing our outsides and insides to get on a plane. In terms of making us worse off, the 9/11 terrorists succeeded – our security apparatus is a bloated anchor on American life and has consumed an absurd amount of resources.
All we need is an n of 1. The idea that it’s not possible, given the millions entering, seems simply foolish. Coordinate another day of bombings at half a dozen large crowds in US cities and we’ll all be forced to submit to fingerprint and retina scans to go to the grocery store.
Yes, one can point out that “a determined terrorist will get in anyway” and that virtually/all the inbound migrants aren’t terrorists, but most of us do lock our doors at night.
Jon Murphy
Sep 19 2023 at 11:36am
That’s a novel claim. Usually, when one makes a claim, they need evidence of their claim. Here, evidence is irrelevant! Good to know.
Jon Murphy
Sep 19 2023 at 11:37am
If, as you say:
Why haven’t they?
steve
Sep 19 2023 at 1:25pm
This seems like the zero risk argument. If you are not willing to tolerate any risk then you can justify any amount of spending. In reality we dont have an infinite amount of money or other resources so you need some way to measure the risk and then provide appropriate risk reduction. You also need to acknowledge the opportunity cost if you want to spend disproportionately more to stop one risk more than another.
Steve
Jon Murphy
Sep 19 2023 at 7:39pm
Agreed. The immigration-restrictions-because-of-terrorism arguments fall prey to the same mistake the covid-locdown arguments make: ignoring costs in favor of a vanishingly small potential benefit (though, given just actual figures, the COVID-lockdowners had a stronger case than the immigration-restrictionists. Still a fatally weak case, but if one buys one argument, logically they ought to buy the other).
Mark Z
Sep 19 2023 at 11:09pm
Ok, but the guy who rushes the cockpit and forces the terrorists to down the plane in a field rather than flying it into a building, thereby preventing the next 9/11, could also be coming across the border. So could the person who, with a college education, develops a drug that cures some disease and saves countless lives. That’s why this kind of argument is pointless. We can use our imaginations to come up with innumerable things that could happen on either the plus or minus side.
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