The Department of State has halted a program meant to allow Gazan children who require medical care to receive it in the United States.
Laura Loomer, a Jewish provocateur who holds considerable sway in the Trump administration despite holding no official role, took credit for the move, announced on Saturday.
A day before, Loomer had posted videos of Gazan Palestinians arriving at airports in cities including San Francisco, Dallas and St. Louis and said, “This is a national security threat. We didn’t vote for more Islamic immigration into the United States. Who signed off on these visas? They should be fired.” She also alleged that the nonprofit that helped families obtain care in the United States, which initially posted many of the videos, was working with Hamas.
The state department snapped to attention, issuing a statement saying that the program had been halted.
“All visitor visas for individuals from Gaza are being stopped while we conduct a full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to issue a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas in recent days,” the Department of State said on Saturday.
HEAL Palestine, the Ohio-based nonprofit that organized the care, said in a statement that it was “distressed” by the halt and emphasized that its efforts, which it said had so far brought 14 children to the United States, were not designed to allow Gazans to remain permanently in the United States. The group had previously posted videos of children and families arriving at U.S. airports, including Saedra, a toddler born with leg abnormalities; Layan, who had severe burns; Seba, Wasim and Mohammed, who had lost limbs in bombings.
“After their treatment is complete, the children and any accompanying family members return to the Middle East,” it said. “This is a medical treatment program, not a refugee admissions program.”
The admissions come amid widespread concern about a humanitarian crisis in Gaza after nearly two years of war that began when Hamas attacked Israel from the enclave. President Donald Trump has lamented the conditions and called on Israel to improve aid while also backing Israel’s plan to widen its military operation in the enclave.
Trump and Israeli officials have both expressed a desire to see Gazans to be allowed to leave the enclave if they desire. But no countries have said they would admit large numbers of Gazan Palestinians. (Israel is reportedly pressing a handful of mostly Muslim countries, including South Sudan, Ethiopia and Indonesia, to open their doors.)
France recently suspended its program to evacuate Gazans after one recent admission, an adult who had been accepted to an elite university, was alleged to have made antisemitic social media posts.
For her part, Loomer, who has in the past described herself as a “proud Islamophobe,” is continuing to press a case against the State Department, urging her followers on Monday morning to call their lawmakers to demand accountability.
“We still don’t have an answer. WHO at the US State Department approved the visas for GAZANS?” she tweeted on Sunday night. “A temporary pause on the visas isn’t good enough. They need to be ended FOREVER. We can’t let this go. We need to know who approved the visas and they need to be publicly fired.”
