The State Department on Friday stood by its vetting process of people trying to enter the United States through a “fiancee visa,” just hours after it was revealed that gunmen Syed Rizwan Farook pledged allegiance to the Islamic State just before Wednesday’s office building shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., that killed 14.
Spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau was asked several questions about the screening process for Farook’s wife, Tashfeen Malik, who entered the U.S. with a fiancee visa and may have radicalized her husband. But Trudeau said the visa process is working properly.
After being asked whether she was “satisified that Malik’s application process followed proper protocol,” Trudeau responded, “Yes.”
“We stand behind our screening process for visas,” Trudeau said. But she also hinted that State is always reviewing its procedures, a sign they could be revisited in light of Wednesday’s shooting.
“Our process, we continue to revise, we continue to look at, but these are processes that happen, every day, around the world, in our U.S. embassies. And while we won’t get ahead of this investigation, the process that visa applicants go through continues to be improved. It was improved after 9/11. It’s something we look at every day,” Trudeau said.
“But at this stage, we stand behind those processes,” Trudeau concluded. She said that “at this stage, I have no information that indicates” that any State official “dropped the ball” in the Malik investigation.
