Rick Jervis

USA TODAY

Refugees seeking asylum in the USA from the seven countries listed under President Trump’s controversial travel ban do not pose a significant terrorism threat to the United States, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security memo.

The three-page memo, titled “Citizenship Likely an Unreliable Indicator of Terrorist Threat to the United States” and obtained by the Associated Press, was drafted in response to a White House request and contradicts assertions by the Trump administration that the travel ban was necessary to keep Americans safe.

Trump cited terrorism concerns for implementing the travel ban from seven mostly Muslim countries — Syria, Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Libya and Yemen. Earlier this month, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked enforcement of the travel order, upholding an earlier decision by a federal judge in Seattle.

Trump and his advisers attacked the court order and vowed to continue the fight in court.

“This is a judicial usurpation of power,” White House policy adviser Stephen Miller told Fox News Sunday shortly after the court’s decision. “It is a violation of judges’ proper roles in litigating disputes. We will fight it.”

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In the Homeland Security memo, analysts show through statistics and reports that relatively few people from the seven countries listed in the travel ban have carried out or been involved in terrorism-related activities in the USA since Syria’s war started in 2011.

It said more than half of the 82 people the government determined were inspired by a foreign terrorist group to carry out or try to carry out an attack in the United States were U.S. citizens born in the USA. The others were from 26 countries, with Pakistan, Somalia, Bangladesh, Cuba, Ethiopia, Iraq and Uzbekistan leading the pack.

The memo also asserted that relatively few people from the seven banned countries are given access to the U.S. None of the seven countries accounted for more than 7% of the U.S. visas granted in their region in Fiscal Year 2015, it said.

Homeland Security spokeswoman Gillian Christensen told the Associated Press the memo was from a single intelligence source and not the final comprehensive review requested by the White House. “The ... report does not include data from other intelligence community sources," she said. "It is incomplete.”

The assessment drew from unclassified information from Justice Department press releases on terrorism-related convictions and terrorist attack perpetrators killed in the act, State Department visa statistics, the 2016 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, and the State Department Country Reports on Terrorism 2015.

The travel ban sparked protests by thousands of people across the nation and drew condemnation from leaders in countries like Britain, France, Australia and Canada.