Eli Lake, Columnist

Trump's Travel Ban Is Not Recruiting More Terrorists

But it is hurting U.S. efforts to recruit allies in counterterrorism.

February 10, 2017 at 10:20 AM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

Recruiting for whom?
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Since President Donald Trump last month issued an executive order banning travel from seven Muslim majority nations, we've heard a lot about how it will aid jihadists.

Leading Democrats, counterterrorism experts and even Iran's foreign minister have all asserted that Trump's travel ban will end up being used by the Islamic State to recruit new terrorists. Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, made this point forcefully on Jan. 30, when he told MSNBC that Trump's executive order "ultimately is going to get Americans killed."