The U.S. Department of State announced Saturday morning that it was stopping a visa program that allowed residents of Gaza to enter the United States for "medical-humanitarian" reasons. This comes after videos of large groups of Gazans—often decked out in "Palestinian" flags and keffiyehs associated with the terror group Hamas—arriving at airports across the nation began popping up on social media in the last few weeks.
According to this State Department tweet, the program is being paused while officials review the "process and procedures" that have allowed a stream of injured children from Gaza, often accompanied by several family members, into the country. Whether or not these families have been properly vetted is anyone's guess at this point.
The action by the State Department seems to come after online activists flagged the alarming images and videos of Gazan families arriving at U.S. airports that started to pop up on platforms like X and Instagram in recent days. Even more alarming, they are often met at the airport by throngs of what appear to be Hamas supporters, judging by their attire. This seems to be happening at airports in San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, and Washington, D.C.
A little online sleuthing reveals that the vast majority, and possibly all, of the Gazans arriving in the U.S. on these special visas are receiving help from a non-profit called HealPalestine. HealPalestine, which is based out of Ohio, isn't shy about boasting of their role in bringing swarms of Gazans into cities across the U.S.; they've helpfully documented everything on their social media pages.
It all seems to have kicked off in late July, when, according to HealPalestine, 11 children and 26 of their siblings were evacuated from Gaza and brought into Jordan; the evacuation was apparently facilitated by the World Health Organization. Instead of the children and their families remaining in Jordan for treatment, as was agreed to by Jordan's King Abdullah II when he met with President Trump earlier this year, it appears that HealPalestine somehow arranged for visas to the U.S.
Now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the case last year, while still a senator, for why the U.S. should not allow Gazans into the U.S. It comes down to one thing: vetting. It's almost impossible to do. Here's what Rubio and some of his fellow senators wrote to the Biden administration:
"U.S. and allied officials have very little access to Gazans living in the area, making it nearly impossible to conduct thorough vetting before admitting them into our country. We must ensure Gazans with terrorist ties or sympathies are denied admission into the United States — no easy feat, given the fact that the Gazans were the ones who voted Hamas into power in 2006," the Senators charge.
"Without thorough vetting, your administration may inadvertently accept terrorists posing as refugees into the interior. This is especially the case as Hamas terrorists have a long track record of co-mingling with civilian populations in Gaza."
Americans won't soon forget the shocking images of Gaza residents defiling the bodies of Israeli citizens on October 7 or jeering Israeli hostages as they were being handed over the International Red Cross. The possibility that the U.S. just welcomed a group of unvetted Gazan citizens onto our soil is deeply concerning.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
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