No resettled refugee ever attacked US: Kerry
John Kerry said Thursday that no terrorist attack on US had ever been committed by a refugee.
BUENOS AIRES (AFP) - US Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday that no terrorist attack on the United States had ever been committed by a refugee resettled in the country.
"In the course of our experience with counterterrorism, not one event in the United States, of terror, has ever been committed by a refugee who was let in the country," Kerry told a news conference in Argentina.
Kerry noted that some acts had been committed by people who were traveling in the US or there on a legal visiting basis, "but not a refugee who has been resettled."
His comment touched on a sensitive issue in the run-up to November s US presidential election. The provocative Republican contender Donald Trump has called for a halt to Syrian refugees entering the United States, suggesting there could be terrorists among them.
The United States has suffered a string of attacks including last December s mass shooting in San Bernadino, California. One of the two suspects in that attack was a Pakistani immigrant but not a refugee.
Kerry was responding to a question about security in connection with Argentina s decision to accept 3,000 refugees from war-torn Syria.
"We have developed a sufficient level of screening, of a very in-depth background check" for incoming refugees, Kerry said.
"We are very comfortable that we are bringing in people who will be a great plus to our country as we believe they will be a plus to your country."
Syrian and Lebanese community groups estimate that there are more than three million people in Argentina who are descended from those countries.
US President Barack Obama is scheduled to host a summit on refugees at the United Nations in New York in September.
Kerry spoke alongside his Argentine counterpart Susana Malcorra at the foreign ministry in Buenos Aires.
He was visiting Argentina before heading to Brazil to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro on Friday.
