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Watchdogs Sue Trump Administration Over Misleading Report on Terror Threat

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US human rights groups are suing US President Donald Trump’s administration for a report that mischaracterizes Muslims and inflates the threat of terrorism, court documents revealed on Tuesday.
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"The Report presents information on immigrants and foreign nationals in a manner that misleadingly inflates the threat they pose to the United States," the complaint, filed by Muslim Advocates and Democracy Forward Foundation in a federal court in California, said. "Its presentation of this information also focuses exclusively and inaccurately on Muslims."

The complaint said the report violated the Information Quality Act by overstating and misrepresenting the threat posed by immigrants, particularly Muslims.

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The plaintiffs cited an April 2017 report by the US Government Accountability Office, claiming that the native born US citizens are responsible for the "overwhelming majority of terrorism fatalities since 2002." The US government, according to the complaint, provides skewed and incomplete information to discriminate against Muslims.

"This so-called report is blatantly false, purposefully misleading, and it’s illegal. The government has an obligation to be truthful and transparent, and we plan to hold this administration to that standard," Muslim Advocates' legal director Johnathan Smith said in a statement.

In January, the US Departments of Justice and Homeland Security released a report that said three out of every four individuals charged for international terrorism from 2001 to 2016 were foreign-born.

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