Syrian refugees will go through a stricter Department of Homeland Security vetting process than the one reportedly used to screen one of the San Bernardino shooters, President Obama’s spokesman assured reporters Friday.
The issue arose from reports that Tashfeen Malik, who is said to have posted a pro-ISIS statement on Facebook just before carrying out the attack with her husband, came to the United States on a so-called “fiancé visa” and passed the DHS counterterrorism-screening process used for that visa. That aspect of the case makes the San Bernardino attack a potential flashpoint in the debate over funding the president’s plan to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees in the United States.
“Refugees seeking to be resettled in the United States are subjected to the most rigorous, intensive screening of anyone who attempts to enter the United States,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said. “The standards for people who enter on the visa that you just described [are] not as strict.”
Malik was born in Pakistan and raised in Saudi Arabia. According to NBC News, “Investigators are looking into whether the Pakistan-born Malik, who spent most of her childhood in Saudi Arabia, radicalized her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook.”
#share#Yesterday, Senators Ted Cruz and Jeff Sessions asked Obama to release the attackers’ immigration records, saying Congress needs the information before voting on the legislation that would fund the refugee program.
“We are dealing with an enemy that has shown it is not only capable of bypassing U.S. screening, but of recruiting and radicalizing Muslim migrants after their entry to the United States,” Cruz and Sessions wrote in a letter to the administration.
Earnest said it’s too early to attribute the San Bernardino attack to jihadist motives. “What it looks like is people who were obviously intent on carrying out a terrible act of violence,” Earnest said. “[As] for divining their motives and getting a better sense of what their eventual plan may have been — that’s something that the FBI will speak to.”