Homegrown Terror: ISIS and ISIL Recruitment of US Citizens and Residents, Caroline Schuckel, UG '25 (2770268)

My research examines the Recruitment of U.S Citizens and Residents and examines and explains the threat this poses to National and International Security. Beginning in 2010 ISIS and ISIL began recruiting U.S citizens as Foreign Fighters (anyone not living within Syria and Iraq recruited by ISIS). There have been over 40,000 individuals recruited this way, mostly via social media, these then radicalized individuals are then encouraged to carry out violence in the name of ISIS in both their home countries and to travel to ISIS held territory to fight there. This poses a clear national security threat, which can be mitigated as there is a pattern of targeting by ISIS. This Dataset looks at 127 individuals who were recruited and radicalized by ISIS. As part of my presentation I present a map which shows that near half of the individuals in my dataset reside in one of the counties that are targeted by ISIS given their high population percentage of middle eastern immigrants. It is my hope that this data can be used to mitigate the effect of violence on these communities via anti-radicalisation training and compassionate attention given to these vulnerable areas.

Caroline Schuckel, UG '25: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-schuckel/