Citizenship and terrorism: the significance of a pathway to citizenship on homeland security

Abstract

This thesis asks the following question: How would providing a pathway to citizenship for the illegal immigrant population of the United States affect homeland security with respect to domestic terrorism? Terrorism within the United States is categorized in terms of citizenship status: citizen, naturalized citizen, legal immigrant, illegal immigrant, and non-immigrating foreigner. An analysis of terrorism defined by the categories of citizenship status and estimated population size was used to assess data from the Global Terrorism Database for the period between 2001 and 2011. Percentages of terrorism by categories of citizenship status are compared to percentages of the estimated total population to identify an order of prevalence among the categories. The results from the analysis of the Global Terrorism Database were used to assess the significance of including a pathway to citizenship within current comprehensive immigration reform proposals in regards to homeland security antiterrorism policies within the United States. This thesis concludes that terrorism conducted by United States citizens, both native and naturalized, is the predominant form of terrorism in the United States. Furthermore, it is argued that the inclusion of a path to citizenship within comprehensive immigration reform proposals will not result in a significant increase in domestic terrorism.