San Bernardino Shooter Tashfeen Malik Denied Having Any Terrorist Ties, Influence on US Immigration Application
New reports reveal that San Bernardino shooter Tashfeen Malik denied having any militant sympathies or intentions on an immigration application she filled in 2013 to receive a U.S. visa.
Malik, who was born in Saudi Arabia, and her American-born husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, opened fire at the Inland Regional Center during a Christmas party on Dec. 2, killing 14 people and wounding 21 others. The couple was then killed during a shootout with police after the attack. It was later discovered that the suspects were individually self-radicalized long before they got married and moved to California.
An attorney representing Farook's family said that Malik met her husband on a dating website in 2013. She eventually gained legal permanent resident status in America after obtaining a K-1 visa for fiancées in July 2014. CBS also reports that she passed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's "counterterrorism screening as part of her vetting" process before receiving a visa. Once in the U.S., Malik and Farook got married on Aug. 16, 2014.
According to Reuters, newly released documents from Malik's immigration file reveal that she denied ever using or selling weapons, or engaging in "terrorist activity" on a Form I-485, which was part of her permanent residence application. The papers also showed that statements by Malik and her husband did not raise any red flags among authorities.
Now, elected officials are calling for changes in the U.S. immigration vetting process to prevent potential terrorist from entering the country. Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia released a statement saying Malik's application was not carefully reviewed.
"Visa security is critical to national security, and it's unacceptable that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services did not fully vet Malik's application and instead sloppily approved her visa," Goodlatte said.
Meanwhile, two unnamed top federal law enforcement officials said that Malik began sending private Facebook messages expressing sympathy for Islamist militancy before her U.S. visa was granted.
One of the officials characterized the messages as "her private communications ... to a small group of her friends," reports The Los Angeles Times. The official added it was written in the Pakistani language of Urdu.
The second official said Malik "expressed her desire" in one of the posts to become a jihadi in her own right.
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