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 Under the U.S. "Visa Security Program," consular officials in
American embassies overseas can ask U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) agents stationed in the embassies to produce a
"Security Assessment Opinion," or SAO, before the consulate decides
whether to approve a U.S. visa application.
A deeper investigation was not, however, requested for Malik because
routine background checks turned up no "derogatory information" that
raised the suspicions of visa reviewers, the official said.
It was the latest twist in the case of U.S.-born Syed Rizwan Farook,
28, his Pakistani-born wife, Malik, 29, who investigators said
became radicalized long before they killed 14 people in a shooting
rampage in San Bernardino, California, on Dec. 2.
Questions have been raised whether the U.S. government missed any
warning signs of the attack, which investigators believe was
inspired by Islamic State but not directed by the militant group.
 VISA PROCESS SCRUTINIZED
How Malik was secured her spousal visa, known as a K-1 visa, has
come under close scrutiny.
Before issuing an SAO, ICE agents "may conduct applicant interviews,
additional database checks, a physical document review and liaison
with local law enforcement officials," said a 2009 Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) paper that described the investigation
procedure.
In Malik's case, though, since earlier background checks did not
raise suspicions, no SAO investigation was requested before she was
granted a visa to enter the United States as Farook's fiancée, the
U.S. official said.
A spokeswoman for the DHS, which oversees ICE, declined to comment.
Routine visa background inquiries usually include checking a visa
applicant's name against various spy agency and law enforcement
databases, but would not normally involve extensive investigations
in the applicant's country of origin.
Absent a compelling reason for consular officials to ask for an SAO
investigation on a visa applicant, officials said, such checks
normally would not be conducted. One official noted that the U.S.
government issues 70 million visas to foreigners every year and does
not have resources to thoroughly investigate all of them.
It is unclear, however, whether even an SAO investigation of Malik
would have turned up information that might have raised questions
about whether Malik should have been awarded a U.S. visa.
Officials have said that before being granted a visa, Malik
underwent national security and criminal background checks conducted
by Homeland Security, the State Department and U.S. spy agencies.
She was also interviewed by the U.S. consulate in Pakistan, and the
New York Times reported that she was interviewed by a U.S.
immigration officer in the United States before being granted a
permanent resident's green card.
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U.S. officials have said that Malik and Farook were completely
unknown to U.S. spy agencies before the San Bernardino shootings.
SOCIAL MEDIA
U.S. officials have also acknowledged that under visa vetting
procedures at the time that Malik applied for her visa, no one
routinely checked applicants' social media postings for
irregularities.
Members of the U.S. Congress on Tuesday pushed for a U.S. law to
require reviews of social media postings, as well as public
databases. Republican Senator John McCain introduced legislation
requiring such searches and 22 Senate Democrats wrote to the DHS
asking for a similar change.
Officials familiar with the investigation into the San Bernardino
shootings say that it was discovered after the shootings that Malik
began posting social media messages demonstrating a sympathy for
Islamic militancy before her U.S. visa was granted.
At the time, U.S. officials involved in vetting visa applicants were
under pressure from the Obama administration to avoid looking at
visa applicants' social media postings out of respect for their
privacy and civil liberties, two former DHS officials said.
Other officials familiar with post-shooting investigations into
Malik's background said that Malik posted her pro-jihadist messages
under a pseudonym and also activated privacy settings, which meant
that any alarming messages would have been difficult to find even if
visa reviewers had been able to look for them.
Two U.S. officials said on Tuesday that even the message Malik
posted around the time of the shooting in which she pledged
allegiance to the Islamic State movement would have been hard for
investigators to discover because she posted it on someone else's
Facebook page.
(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Matt
Spetalnick and Steve Orlofsky)
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