WASHINGTON — The woman who carried out the San Bernardino massacre with her husband came to the U.S. last year on a special visa for fiancées of U.S. citizens, raising questions about whether the process can adequately vet people who may sympathize with terrorist groups.
Authorities on Friday said Pakistani citizen Tashfeen Malik, 27, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group under an alias account on Facebook just moments before she and her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, opened fire.
Malik, who had been living in Pakistan and visiting family in Saudi Arabia, had passed several government background checks and entered the U.S. in July 2014 on a K-1 visa, which allowed her to travel to the U.S. and get married within 90 days of arrival.
Malik was subjected to a vetting process that the U.S. government describes as vigorous, including in-person interviews, fingerprints, checks against U.S. terrorists watch lists and reviews of her family members, travel history, and places where she lived and worked. The process began when she applied for a visa to move to the United States and marry Farook, a 28-year-old Pakistani-American restaurant health inspector who was raised in Southern California.
Foreigners applying from countries recognized as home to Islamic terrorists, such as Pakistan, undergo additional scrutiny before the U.S. State Department and Homeland Security Department approve permission for a K-1 visa.
It was not immediately clear what information Malik provided as a part of the background check by the State Department and Citizenship and Immigration Services or when she became radicalized.
“This is not a visa that someone would use because it is easy to get into the U.S., because there are more background checks on this type of visa than just about anything else,” said Palma Yanni, a Washington-based attorney who has processed dozens of K-1 visas. “But fingerprints and biometrics and names aren’t going to tell you what is in somebody’s head unless they somewhere have taken some action.”
The apparent failure to detect Malik’s alleged sympathies will probably have implications on the debate over plans to accept Syrian refugees. The vetting process for refugees is similar, though not identical, to the one for fiancée-visa applicants.
