ISIS is at the border! They could already be in the United States!

Those are some of the headlines that have been running in American papers and websites since the gruesome videos of ISIS beheading American journalists were released.

This month, Texas governor and 2012 presidential candidate Rick Perry has been warning “they could already be here” and has been joined by others, which have successfully scared a lot of Americans. About 47 percent surveyed in an NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey said that they feel the United States is less safe than it was on Sept. 11, 2001, the highest figure in years. ISIS’s actions in Iraq and Syria have been extremely brutal. But there is really no reason for Americans to get so worked up about the domestic threats ISIS might pose.

Yet Governor Perry, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and others have been warning about the threat of terrorists allegedly sneaking across the U.S. border with Mexico. One source of those fears was a document, prepared incidentally by the Texas Department of Public Safety, Perry’s own state, that warned of social media posts by terrorists who said they wanted to attack America.

While there’s certainly no shortage of terrorists who would like to blow civilians up in the United States, there’s a big difference between talking about something on Facebook and actually putting it into action. The document itself noted that there were no specific threats at the time it was published. Perry himself had to concede, “I agree there’s no hard evidence,” when challenged.

It is true that ISIS, like al-Qaeda and any number of terrorist groups, is a potential threat down the road. Some members hold Western passports, allowing for easy travel. A gang of suspected ISIS members was arrested in Australia just one week ago. ISIS is not an idle threat, but neither is it a threat that should be exaggerated beyond the facts. The United States has already changed its laws since 9/11 in order to combat terrorism, and it has been safe because of it.

But humans are prone to react irrationally to large-scale, graphic depictions of violence. After 9/11, many Americans substituted driving for flying on long trips, inadvertently picking a much more dangerous form of transportation. Professors Raywat Deonandan and Amber Backwell of the Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences at the University of Ottawa found that resulted in an increase in injuries over what would have happened if they flew.

Perhaps the initial fear of flying after 9/11 is understandable, since Americans had never seen anything like it before, but now Americans have been living in the post-9/11 world for 13 years and should have gotten used to it. Yet the excessive fear of terrorism permeating everyday lives has never been entirely absent since 9/11. It waxes and wanes with the tides of current events, politics, and business.

The latest scare about terrorists crossing the southern border is as much about politics as it is about security. All three of the above mentioned politicians and most of the others warning about the porous border are Republicans. Republicans have long argued for tighter border control and have opposed illegal immigration. About 12 million illegal immigrants are living in the United States, and an estimated 40,000 children scrambled across the border from Central American countries this summer. At the same time, President Obama and Democratic legislators have been trying to pass a bill that would allow for many of those illegal immigrants to become legal immigrants, which Republicans have opposed. It would be enough for Republicans to argue that the number of illegal immigrants in the country proves the need for tighter border control, but Republicans often feel the need to exaggerate the problem and cite terrorism instead.

In 2006, the conservative group Family Security Matters wrote, “9/11 was a precursor. The next incident will be far greater.” Seven years later and no next incident. Rick Perry said that there’s a rush of illegal immigrants coming from terrorist safe havens “like Syria.” In 2012, the Border Patrol caught two Syrians crossing the border. Seventy percent of people crossing the border came from Mexico.

But reasonable or not, such fears can make good campaign ads. Republican Senate candidate in Georgia, David Perdue cited the same Texas Department of Public Safety Report in an ad that warned of ISIS crossing the border. A Republican Congressional Committee ad ties terrorism in with the border while attacking Democrat Dan Maffei. For Perry, he is also assumed to be contemplating a 2016 presidential run, so he may be trying to get some traction on that issue.

The hubbub parallels another one from 2006 when there was an explosion of concerns about possible terrorist attacks on school buses. “Road Warriors,” a CNN headline read, describing bus drivers. The American public is “sticking their heads in the sand,” said Todd Rassa, who runs a defense training and consulting company, proving that money can come from exaggerating risks. Family Security Matters, which earns its money from political donations, recommended: “The drivers should not linger at bus stops, making [the bus] a better target…”

There has been no attack, but there have been 163 kids killed by school shootings in the United States since 9/11, according to data compiled by Jessie Klein, author of The Bully Society: School shootings and the crisis of bullying in America's schools.

None of this is to downplay terrorism or to suggest that America shouldn’t take actions to fight it. But the United States is already doing just that and has been for more than a decade. In 2001, 3,000 Americans died in New York City by an act of terrorism. In 2011, a total of 17 Americans died the world over due to terrorism. Americans can go on with their daily lives knowing that if a terrorist talks online about trying to enter America, there is a good chance that their communications might be overheard and put into a report. If they go to Syria seeking to train in terrorism, they might be struck down by a Tomahawk missile. What is least likely is that they will be able to successfully carry out an attack that will take hundreds of American lives.

Mitchell Blatt is the producer of ChinaTravelWriter.com and an editor at a map magazine in Nanjing.

Opinion articles reflect the author's own opinion, not necessarily that of China.org.cn.

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