In the wake of the mass shooting in California on Dec. 2, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is calling for the Obama administration to release the immigration records of the San Bernardino shooters.

The Texas senator and fellow Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama issued a letter on Thursday demanding to see the immigration records of the married couple who killed 14 people at the Inland Regional Center. According to the senators, the immigration history of the killers and their families should play a key role in the debate over funding the Syrian refugee resettlement program.

In the letter, the GOP lawmakers ask to see immigration documentation of 72 other people who committed acts of terrorism within the last few years.

"You have failed to comply with the [original] request [for immigration history of 72 recent terrorists] sent more than three-and-half months ago," reads the letter, which is addressed to Department Homeland Security Secretary (DHS) Jeh Johnson, Secretary of State John Kerry and Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

"A response is not only long overdue, but urgent in light of a series of assaults, including: the heinous attacks in San Bernardino, California, the earlier attacks on the military recruiting center in Chattanooga, the Boston Bombing, and Congress' imminent consideration of government funding legislation that would include funding for myriad immigration programs that have allowed for these events to occur," Cruz and Sessions added.

The congressmen are requesting the information in advance of the upcoming congressional vote on a spending bill that includes funding for the Syrian refugee and other immigration programs.

"Congress is days away from consideration of an omnibus year-end funding bill that would set the U.S. on an autopilot path to approve green cards, asylum, and refugee status to approximately 170,000 migrants from Muslim countries during the next year," Cruz and Sessions continued. "The security task involved is immense, and Congress must have the requested information if lawmakers are to act as responsible stewards of American immigration policy."

One of the shooters, 28-year-old Syed Farook, was born in Chicago to Pakistani parents. He was then raised in Southern California.

His wife, Tashfeen Malik, was born in Pakistan, but gained legal permanent resident status after obtaining a K-1 visa for fiancées in July 2014, authorities said, according to the Los Angeles Times. CBS reports that she passed the Homeland Security's "counterterrorism screening as part of her vetting" process before receiving a visa. The Muslim couple was then married on Aug. 16, 2014, and had a 6-month-old daughter.

"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. The recruitment of terrorists in the U.S. is not limited to adult migrants, but to their young children and to their U.S.-born children - which is why family immigration history is necessary to understand the nature of the threat," wrote Cruz and Sessions.