Channels, Fall 2017

Page 87 Channels • 2017 • Volume 2 • Number 1 to the question of whether increases in immigration lead to increases in terrorism. The hypothesis of this research project is that as countries receive increased levels of asylum seekers from terror-prone nations, they will experience a corresponding increase in the number of terror attacks within the nation. Our basic premise is that immigrant flows form a social bridge, transplanting cultures, ideologies, and individuals between the sending and receiving nations. Usually this process is benign; however, when the migrants originate from a terror-producing nation, they facilitate the transfer of latent conflicts and extremism. They also mask the travel of terrorists, who hide like bandits among the lawful population seeking asylum in the nation or city of refuge. Thus, we are seeking to find out if there is a strong correlation between immigration and terrorism. The null hypothesis, then, is that there is no correlation between immigration from terror-prone nations and the occurrence of terror attacks within a particular nation. Methodology Six countries were selected (Germany, Turkey, Greece, United States, Canada, and Australia) based on their immigration policies, proximity to terror-prone countries, and their popularity as the country of destination for immigrants. For example, Germany was chosen due to its open immigration policy and its popularity as a destination for immigrants in 2015. Countries like Australia and the United States were selected due to recent actions taken and policies enacted to restrict or constrain immigration. Turkey and Greece were selected due to their very close proximity to those fleeing the Syrian crisis, while Canada was selected for its very tolerant stance on immigration. In order to examine the relationship between immigration and terrorism, it was necessary to locate databases with appropriate statistics. The database used to find out the Inflows of Asylum Seekers into each country from 2000-2015 was the International Migration Database of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The database used to find out the number of Terrorism Incidents in each country from 2000-2015 was the Global Terrorism Database. After collecting the appropriate data for each country, numerous statistical tests could finally be run for each of the six countries. The first step was to examine whether or not there was a positive trend in inflows of asylum seekers from 2000-2015. The second step was to examine whether or not there was a positive trend in terrorism incidents from 2000-2015. After establishing the nature of the trend of each variable individually, a scatterplot was created for both variables together to examine the potential for a positive correlation. Since the number of inflows of asylum seekers was in the hundreds of thousands, it was necessary to scale the number down in order to align more with the number of terrorism incidents, which were in the tens and hundreds. Then a set of descriptive statistics was run that examined the mean and median for the inflows of asylum seekers (by thousands). Another set of descriptive statistics were run examining the minimum, maximum, mean, and standard deviation for the inflows of asylum seekers (by thousands). A table is also included with the Pearson’s Correlation