Posted on 12/13/2015 3:27:06 AM PST by markomalley
Tashfeen Malik, the Pakistani woman who killed 14 people with her husband in San Bernardino earlier this month, openly advocated violent jihad on her social media accounts before coming to the U.S., but government officials approved her fiancee visa anyway, The New York Times reports.
Law enforcement officials discovered the posts, according to The Times. Had authorities found the messages when Malik applied last year for a K-1 fiancee visa to come to the U.S. with her husband, Syed Farook, she likely would not have been approved for entry. But, as The Times notes, immigration officials rarely check applicants’ social media posts for red flags. And female applicants are generally subject to less scrutiny than male applicants.
As one former senior Homeland Security Investigations officials told The Times, visa applicants’ identities are run against federal terror watch list databases, and if the person is not flagged during that process, they are usually not subject to further investigation.
Malik, who was born in Pakistan but grew up in Saudi Arabia, went through three separate screenings before being granted a green card. That despite the reportedly inflammatory social media posts and her reported association with radical elements as a student in Pakistan.
The first screening Malik went through was a criminal background and national security database check conducted by the Department of Homeland Security. The State Department conducted the second check, when the agency compared her fingerprints against national security databases. Lastly, she was interviewed by officials in the U.S. when she applied for her green card after marrying Farook.
The 29-year-old Malik also went through two in-person interviews, The Times reported — one with a consular officer in Pakistan and the other with an immigration officer in the U.S. during the green card application process.
Farook, who was born in Chicago and is of Pakistani descent, was also vetted by the feds. His background reportedly came back clean as well, as he was not on federal terror watch lists or a no-fly list.
That, too, has become a cause of concern. Farook was reportedly in the same social circle as one of four men arrested near San Bernardino in 2012 for plotting to recruit al-Qaeda fighters. It is still unclear how close Farook was to the would-be recruiter, who was recently sentenced to 25 years in prison for providing material support to terrorists.
Oversight or intentional fast tracking of a jihadi into the US. How often does the Obama Regime work directly to endanger the US and it citizens?
We are monitored like crazy and immigration doesn’t look at social media postings of visa applications? Smh.
A live person is responsible for making tge visa decision (not a computer program). Who was this person? Obviously is was someone in Hillary’s State Department.
So the typical terrorist was a male and now we add female to the roster.............the next step is a baby in a stroller or a kindergardener, watch and see! We have been so paralyzed by our elected officials who are crafting laws and bending over to protect the army that is implanted within our country. Trump sed, we dont know who anyone is anymore. If we dont get serious we are doomed, how fast we were conditioned to forgot 911.
24x7. Everything he's done has been detrimental to the security of the United States.
Liberals do what they do. It’s evil and we all know they will never be held to account until the SHTF.
The question we SHOULD be screaming about is why was the GOP, as the so called Opposition Party, so totally absent from any oversight on ALL these terrorism related issues?
We know why, but the genpub needs to take their head out of the sand and start seeing the obvious. This is the DIRECT RESULT of intentionally electing Lesser Evils ‘no matter what’. And the people that did so need to be held accountable for their negligence and collaboration right along with the lesser evils they demanded.
Trump is ahead of the curve. The politicos in Washington are too slow to realize that it’s impossible to properly vet these people.
Things will probably get a lot worse and then everyone will realize that Trump was right. There are striking parallels between him and Winston Churchill.
That would be Kerry's State Department wouldn't it?
Once a traitor, always a traitor.
It was because of Tashfeen’s interest in terrorism the POSOTUS’ administration allowed her entry.
Trump proven right again. Moratorium until the system is fixed.
The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department really earned their pay on this one, didn’t they?
Do I really need a ‘sarc’ tag here?
Incompetent fools, traitors and misfits.
For those that are quick to think that the government should have caught her based upon her postings, consider the ramifications of such a system.
In order to be effective it would require the government spy on almost all social media. It would have to identify, in multiple languages, any anti-US wording or passages, put that account on a monitor list, then map that account name to someone either via association or via facial recognition. Lastly that information would then have to be made available to INS, FBI, DHS, etc. Technically doable.
But do we want the government to spy on and monitor our online postings? I am of the opinion that would be a step too far.
{”Incompetent fools, traitors and misfits.”}
Apparently you did not listen to the president’s fabulous heartfelt and impassioned, learned, reassuring and inspiring speech in which he confirmed the government’s expert terror detection apparatus and recommitted to continue the incredible fight against ISIS.
I guess the NSA was too busy trying to ferret out Conservatives’ social media postings with its multi-billion dollar computer systems...
No, it would only require the ability to search for a specific person on such sites. That doesn't require them to collect data on everyone.
The real problem isn't that the government cannot access data on these people. The problem is that even when the evidence is right in front of them, they won't act on it due to political correctness. The Ft. Hood shooter made his sympathy for jihad clear to dozens of people in the military. The Russians told the FBI that Tamerlane Tsarnov was probably a terrorist. But nothing was done because the government considers "profiling" and "Islamophobia" a bigger problem than terrorist attacks. Then there is the whole "clockboy" fake bomb fiasco. Now the teacher and school district are being sued for 13 million, while Obama hosts invites him to the Whitehouse. No amount of data collection is going to catch these people when the priority is not offending Muslims.
Look its real simple.
We have 12 million illegal aliens in America that got in illegally and that we can not find or seem to so anything about.
Dead people vote in our elections.
We catch deport illegal aliens for their 3rd and 4th times?????? So They keep getting back in even though we know who they are?????
Now the Government thinks we are stupid enough to believe they can vet 10’s of thousands of muslims they want to allow into this country?
It is not possible to execute what you describe as an action.
Consider how FreeRepublic is structured. No one uses their real name for normal security reasons. If the government searches by the persons name they would be unable to find the social media accounts for that individual. Further, with many names being similar, some with only minor variations is spelling, it becomes even more problematic to identify a specific person.
Now complicate this by someone who is even slightly attempting to hide their identity or intent. Then there comes into play the intentional use of false names, multiple accounts etc.
Now having said that, it does not go against your second point which I fully agree with. Until this government WANTS to confront Islamic terrorists, it will not do so at even the most practical levels.
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