Twenty-five years after a generation promised to «Never Forget,» that pledge now relies on education for the more than 100 million Americans with no memory of 9/11.

The Pentagon is preparing to help address that challenge by breaking ground this weekend on a long-awaited Visitor Education Center at the only one of the three 9/11 attack sites still without a dedicated museum or education center.

The new center is intended to fill the gap that has grown more pronounced with each passing year by helping Americans who never experienced the attacks understand not only what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, but why it continues to matter. 

Joseph Kornhoff, executive director of the Pentagon Memorial Fund, told Fox News Digital that nearly one-third of the country was either not alive that day or has no recollection of it and therefore lacks the «personal connection» shared by those who watched the attacks unfold.

NEW 9/11 MUSEUM EXHIBIT AIMS TO CONNECT YOUNGER AMERICANS TO THE ATTACKS THROUGH POWERFUL ARTIFACTS

«That’s what we’re trying to provide with the visitor education center experience,» Kornhoff said in an interview with Fox News Digital, explaining that the goal is to give visitors a personal connection that allows them to «start to understand the gravity of that day.»

Flowers lay on a bench at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial, adjacent to the Pentagon, ahead of the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, in Washington, DC, on September 9, 2026.  (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP via Getty Images)

Nearly 230 miles north, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York is confronting the same generational divide.

Beth Hillman, president and CEO of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, said the passage of time has only made the annual vow to «Never Forget» more important as the number of Americans with firsthand memories of the attacks declines.

«Many in my generation remember exactly where we were on that horrific day,» Hillman said during an Aug. 31 press preview outlining the museum’s plans for the 25th anniversary. «Yet, 100 million Americans were not even born or are too young to remember that day for themselves today.»

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Noah Rauch, the museum’s senior vice president for education and public programs, said he has watched that transition unfold firsthand through the museum’s work with students and teachers. «I’ve seen this line creeping up between memory and history, between those who remembered the attacks and those who didn’t,» Rauch said during the Aug. 31 press event.

The United States is marking the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when a group of al-Qaeda hijackers flew airplanes into the World Trade Center, Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people. (Jeenah Moon – Pool/Getty Images)

That transition from memory to history also raises a more modern challenge. Americans too young to remember the attacks are increasingly learning about an event they never experienced firsthand, while conspiracy theories and false narratives about 9/11 run rampant online.

Kornhoff said that makes factual education increasingly important, pointing specifically to conspiracy theories surrounding the attack on the Pentagon and narratives suggesting that America «deserved 9/11.»

«That’s the need for the education center,» Kornhoff told Fox News Digital. «As a nation, we need to really take a step back, look at how we’re educating our young children to make sure that we’re providing them with the facts of the situation … and not these conspiracy theories and entertaining wild ideas that just simply are not true.»

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Flowers and American flags rest beside inscribed names at a reflecting pool at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum on Sept. 11, 2026, in New York City, as the nation commemorated the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. (Jeenah Moon – Pool/Getty Images)

The Pentagon center will include 10 exhibits telling the human stories of the attack, including the 184 people killed at the Pentagon and aboard American Airlines Flight 77, the first responders who rushed to the scene and the military and civilian personnel who aided the wounded.

«We are going to address the facts of the day,» Kornhoff said. «We are going to address the entire Pentagon story.»

The renewed focus on 9/11 education has also reached Capitol Hill. Reps. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., introduced bipartisan legislation ahead of the 25-year anniversary, which aims to direct the Department of Education to examine how 9/11 is taught in schools nationwide and identify gaps in instruction.

Kornhoff praised the effort during his interview with Fox News Digital, saying the legislation reflects a growing recognition of the need to educate generations with no firsthand connection to the attacks.

Stainless-steel benches dedicated to victims are seen at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial in Washington, DC, on September 10, 2026, ahead of the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.  ((Photo by Alex WROBLEWSKI / AFP via Getty Images))

The Pentagon 9/11 Memorial Visitor Education Center is expected to open by the end of 2029 near the existing Pentagon 9/11 Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.

The project received $12 million in federal funding this year, along with $1 million from Virginia and additional private donations raised by the Pentagon Memorial Fund. Once completed, the center is expected to include interactive exhibits, historic artifacts and firsthand accounts from survivors and victims’ families while providing visitors with additional context about the attack and its aftermath.

A Bahamian national who arrived in the U.S. during President Gerald Ford’s administration and was living with a green card while racking up a violent rap sheet before investigators found he voted illegally in the 2020 election, sparking the deportation process, officials say.

The case of Anthony Tyrone Higgs is only the latest in a slew of arrests connected to illegal votes cast in recent elections, as the Trump administration engages in a broader crackdown on election integrity-related crimes.

«This alien was a guest in our country who forfeited his right to be in the U.S. when he committed these violent crimes and voted in the 2020 election,» White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis exclusively told Fox News Digital on Friday.

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«Any non-citizens who vote illegally in our elections will be arrested and removed. American elections are only for Americans.»

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a division of DHS, confirmed in a statement that Higgs had illegally voted in the 2020 election.

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HSI’s Atlanta office arrested Higgs in Decatur, Georgia on September 3, and he is currently in the custody of ERO, the ICE subdivision that handles migrant removal operations.

Higgs was admitted into the U.S. in October 1976 as a Lawful Permanent Resident – commonly dubbed a Green Card holder. The Trump DHS has since placed him in proceedings to revoke his immigration status due to his lengthy rap sheet.

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Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., speaks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, March 5, 2026. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

«This criminal alien from the Bahamas has a rap sheet for multiple violent crimes, including armed robbery, domestic violence, and assault on a police officer,» DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said.

«On top of all of that, he illegally voted in the 2020 election,» he added.

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A Homeland Security Investigations logo is displayed ahead of Super Bowl LIX security operations in New Orleans on Feb. 5, 2025. An HSI special agent has since been indicted on multiple felony charges in Alabama. (Aaron M. Sprecher/Getty Images)

Higgs’ record also includes resisting arrest, two counts of grand larceny and two counts of possession of a weapon during a violent crime.

Of the voting-related charge, Mullin said that just one noncitizen casting a ballot is enough to cancel out an American citizen’s vote.

«Thanks to the hard work of the men and women of ICE, this criminal will be removed from our country and can never interfere in our elections again,» he continued.

DHS also provided several other recent cases of illegal immigrants or ineligible voters committing or being charged with election-related crimes.

In August, Colombian illegal immigrant Carlos Jaramillo-Grajales was sentenced to three years in prison following an ICE investigation that led to a guilty plea in a case where he was found to have committed identity theft to illegally vote in elections for more than 20 years, according to the agency.

«Federal immigration laws serve to safeguard our nation’s borders and protect the integrity of our government,» said Gregory Kehoe, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida.

«Those who seek to circumvent, exploit, or break these laws will be prosecuted fully,» he said in an August statement.

In New Jersey, a Slovakian national was found to have illegally voted in the 2022 midterms, according to HSI – which also cited the case of an Australian national accused of illegally casting ballots in both 2022 and 2024 in Louisiana.

Mauritanian national Mahady Sacko was busted by an ICE and FBI partnership in Democrat-run Philadelphia, and charged with voter fraud.

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Sacko allegedly voted illegally multiple times going back to 2008. He was already under an order of removal, DHS said in a statement, stating that he «exhausted all appeals» and an immigration board upheld his removal order as of 2002 but he remained in the country.

Returning to the case of Higgs, Mullin added in a statement: «Thanks to the hard work of the men and women of ICE, this criminal will be removed from our country and can never interfere in our elections again.»

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s presence at Friday’s 9/11 remembrance at Ground Zero drew criticism from some in the city, including one former police officer who said the mayor «probably should have skipped it» and another mourner who called his appearance «disrespectful» and «very offensive.»

Mamdani has faced criticism over his associations with controversial political and online figures, as well as his decision to appoint Ramzi Kassem as his administration’s chief counsel. Kassem previously represented a Guantánamo detainee linked to an al Qaeda terrorist plot. 

Former New York Republican Gov. George Pataki, 9/11-era FDNY Commissioner Thomas von Essen and others called on Mamdani to skip the ceremony.

«He showed up anyway. It does bother us,» Walter Matuza, whose father Walter was killed that day, told Fox News Digital.

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Matuza said he was part of the group of victims’ families that initiated the petition to keep Mamdani away.

He cited Mamdani’s association with streamer Hasan Piker, who once said America «deserved 9/11,» as well as Mamdani’s appointment of Kassem.

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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch announce a new memorial honoring victims of 9/11 inside 1 Police Plaza in New York, N.Y., Sept. 9, 2026. (Cristina Matuozzi/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect)

Matuza, of Staten Island, said his father was one of dozens at Carr Futures brokerage who died after American Airlines Flight 11 struck the north tower just above their 92nd floor offices.

Mike, a former New Jersey police officer, told Fox News Digital he recalled watching the terror unfold on television from across the Hudson – and later came to Manhattan to help relieve exhausted NYPD officers stuck at their posts.

«Based on the rhetoric that he’s used in the past. Yeah, he probably should have skipped it,» Mike said of Mamdani.

He added that Mamdani’s appointment of Kassem also troubled him, saying the mayor could’ve handled the situation in a «whole different way.»

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«But, he did it and unfortunately people aren’t going to forget it.»

Another mourner called Mamdani a «communist» when asked about his appearance on Friday, adding that the memorial was «not supposed to be a political event.»

Steven, who traveled all the way to New York from Hobe Sound, Florida, to attend the remembrance, lambasted Mamdani’s presence as «disrespectful» and «offensive.»

ZOHRAN MAMDANI URGED TO SKIP NEW YORK CITY’S 9/11 MEMORIAL: ‘VILE ANTISEMITE’

«I’ve been following that over the past couple weeks and I saw that I think they had upwards of 700,000 New Yorkers requesting him not to be here. I mean, as the mayor, I would assume he has the right to be here…. But who he represents and the people he’s affiliated with… I feel that he should stay away. I don’t feel that his presence here is wanted, and I think he should honor that as a human being.»

The petition had garnered more than 110,000 signatures at the time, according to the petition’s tally.

Steven called Kassem’s appointment «hideous» and added that the youngest generation who does not remember or did not live through 9/11 are suffering from «incorrect information» and do not understand the reality of the terror attack.

He said he will educate his children on 9/11 so that they do not go down the same ideological road.

Attendee John told Fox News Digital that Mamdani does have a right to attend.

John said he lost friends including at now-Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s Cantor-Fitzgerald firm – which lost more than 650 people; the most of any company in the Twin Towers that day – and that as long as Mamdani is respectful to the fallen Americans being remembered, he is «fine» with the Democrat attending.

Fox News Digital reached out to Mamdani for comment.

In a prior statement, the mayor said he is proud of New York and «love[s] this city [and] country.»

«[W]hat I want this week to be a focus on is on the families whose loved ones were stolen from them 25 years ago in the horrific act of terror of September 11, and a focus also on the first responders who gave everything they could to this city and to the people who came together to try and help their fellow New Yorkers.»

During the ceremony, footage captured Mamdani approaching and greeting his 9/11-era predecessor, Republican Rudolph Giuliani.

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The two could be seen appearing to exchange brief pleasantries before Giuliani turned and sat down and an aide began speaking to the incumbent mayor.

All living former presidents reportedly attended the ceremony, as President Donald Trump instead visited the Pentagon’s remembrance before departing for County Clare, Ireland from nearby Andrews Air Force Base.