WASHINGTON: FBI Director James Comey concurred with a Democratic lawmaker on Wednesday that citizenship alone is not a reliable indicator of the "terror threat" a person may pose to the United States, a rebuke of President Donald Trump's executive order banning travel from several Muslim-majority countries.

"Most of the people that I talked about that we have open cases on are American citizens," Comey told a US Senate panel, agreeing with Senator Patrick Leahy that citizenship does not determine a person's intentions.

Trump's restrictions on visa issuance to citizens of Syria, Iran, Libya, Yemen, Sudan and Somalia is on hold by federal court order.