In a letter to officials in the Obama administration, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL) suggested the administration was stalling on providing information the senators previously demanded about people identified as terrorists. They are now calling for the immigration history of the woman suspected in the San Bernardino shooting and of the family of the other suspect, a man believed to be her husband, who was reportedly born in the United States.
The letter — first reported on by Washington Examiner — references an August request by the two Republicans for background information on 72 individuals believed to be terrorists.
“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,” the letter — addressed to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Department of Homeland Secretary Jeh Johnson, and Secretary of State Kerry — said.
The letter cites news reports about emerging details in the background of San Bernardino shooting suspects Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, prompting the senators to demand “the same detailed information requested” in the August letter, “which would include the immigration history of their parents and any immigration documents related to their marriage and her subsequent travel to the U.S.”
“In our struggle against terrorism, 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,” Sessions and Cruz wrote. “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.”
Congress is currently considering measures that would effectively stall the Syrian refugee programs as well as new restriction on the U.S.’s visa waiver program, a movement spurred by the terror attacks in Paris.
“These events do not occur in isolation, but tend to be part of broader networks of radicalization and extremism that must be understood as we develop immigration policy,” Cruz and Sessions wrote.
Read the letter below:
