Days after the ISIS-organized attacks in Paris last month, President Obama publicly criticized Republicans for being afraid of allowing women and children to enter the country as refugees from the Middle East. Obama scolded unnamed Republican politicians for rhetoric that would serve as a “potent recruitment tool” for ISIS and accused them of being “scared of widows and orphans.”
Before San Bernardino, Obama’s criticism sounded pithy: Republicans were being so needlessly restrictive, even bigoted, that they wanted to deny women and children! Chris Christie, for instance, has been pilloried for suggesting turning away even 5-year-old orphans because the FBI director is not yet convinced the vetting process would be secure. But as we learn more about what happened this week in California, it’s clear our preconceived notions about who fits the profile of a terrorist threat may be wrong.
One of the attackers, Tashfeen Malik, was a Pakistani woman here in the United States on a K-1 “fiancée” visa. That a visa program that has a very strict screening process that even Malik, who appears to have been radicalized and in contact with al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, passed.
As Christie has argued, his unwillingness to even let in children was about being consistent with his proposal for not allowing in any refugees until the FBI was confident in its vetting process. One could still argue the New Jersey governor went too far. But as for women? Maybe those Republicans Obama mocked weren’t so wrong for being “scared.”
