WASHINGTON _ Rep. Pete Aguilar has previously asked President Donald Trump not to refer to the 2015 attack in San Bernardino to justify his plans to limit immigration as a way to prevent terrorism.
When the name of the city he's mourned with again slipped from the president's lips Tuesday night, the Redlands, Calif., Democrat was offended.
"It's just inaccurate and wrong to use San Bernardino as justification for any of the policies that he's rolled out," Aguilar told the Tribune Washington Bureau/Los Angeles Times after the speech. "There are things that we can work on when it comes to self-radicalization and the use of social media platforms, but none of what the president has proposed would have changed the outcome of San Bernardino and that's frankly quite offensive."
Aguilar said the White House hasn't responded to his requests to stop referring to the attack, in which 14 people died at the Inland Regional Center.
"People are tired of San Bernardino being used for political purposes and when he does this it sends a tough message to our community, which is still trying to recover and still trying to move beyond this," Aguilar said.
Rep. Norma Torres, D-Calif., who represented San Bernardino in the state Senate, said "it's disgusting" that Trump can't seem to remember that one of the perpetrators, Syed Rizwan Farook, was born in the United States. His wife and fellow attacker, Tashfeen Malik, was a legal permanent resident.
