Five people have been shot dead by a gunman at Fort Lauderdale airport in Florida, say officials. It happened at the baggage claim area in Terminal 2, just before 1300 local time (1800 GMT), the airport confirmed. Five people were killed, eight injured and one person was unharmed in custody, said police and local officials. Hundreds of people were standing on the tarmac outside the terminal as dozens of police cars and ambulances rushed to the scene. A witness told MSNBC that the gunman was a “slender man” who was wearing a Star Wars T-shirt. Florida Senator Bill Nelson told media that the gunman has been identified as Esteban Santiago, but that has not been confirmed by law enforcement.

Former half-term governor of Alaska Sarah Palin took to the press to offer her thoughts and prayers to the families of the victims, but also used the opportunity to once again criticize former President Barack Obama’s policy on illegal immigration. “First of all, I’d like to offer my condolences to the families of the victims of the Fort Lauderdale terrorist attack, as well as my support to those who have been injured in the incident,” she said. “Make no mistake – this was a full-on terrorist attack, the likes of which we’ve had several in the past months and years. These lone-wolf terrorist attacks have today become a danger far greater than any terrorist cell that might be planning an attack on U.S. soil. It is terrible that we are faced with such an unpredictable network of individuals who will stop at nothing in order to harm innocent civilians.”

She added, “However, don’t be fooled by the idea that there was no stopping this sort of escalation of terrorist violence. We could have prevented all of this 8 years ago, but unfortunately, the citizens of this country – more specifically, true, conservative Americans were outvoted by those who believed Barack Obama was the right choice for president. Eight years later, I’m sad to say America is choking on terrorism, racial issues and gender catastrophes the likes of which are unknown in its recent history. Not only were the liberals not right; they have single-handedly surrendered this country into the hands of a man who’s done more damage to it than any Bush, Reagan or Stalin, for that matter, ever could.”

“It is Barack Obama’s policy of allowing Mexican Muslims to walk freely on our streets that has caused so much death and destruction recently, including this latest incident which has taken 5 innocent lives,” she continued. “Think about that for a second. Why were Mexican Muslims even allowed to walk our streets in the first place, I ask you? They’re, like, double the threat – they’re half Muslim, which means that they hate all of America by default, and the other half is Mexican, which means they can be very hard-working, but at the same time, they’re also very jealous of white people. And if, by some miracle, you were to add just an ounce of Germanic heritage to that, you’d have Hitler in the mix as well. That means they’d be the ultimate killing machine. They should have been incarcerated from the beginning. Instead, we’re left with this situation.”

“I guarantee you no potential gunman would have ever seen the light of day other than through prison bars if anyone other than Barack Obama had been president. All Muslim Mexicans would be scrutinized several times, compared to normal Muslims and Mexicans, the majority of whom would only be subjected to one scrutinization process yearly. Instead, they were left to their own twisted behavior under the excuse of civil liberties, and what happened? We had the Orlando gay club massacre, and now Fort Lauderdale. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out there’s a pretty obvious pattern here. And you better believe there’s more of them coming. So, when the next one happens, I’m not even going to look into who or what the shooter was. I’m directly going after Obama for carelessness on the job and dereliction of duty. Because, he was many things as president, but a patriot was not one of them,” Palin concluded.