By Hamed Aleaziz and Ken Bensinger, The New York Occasions
The Trump administration introduced Saturday that it had paused approvals of customer visas for folks from the Gaza Strip, a key pathway for these in search of medical care in america, together with younger youngsters who arrived in current weeks with critical circumstances.
The State Division mentioned it might assess the method behind these visas. “All visitor visas for individuals from Gaza are being stopped while we conduct a full and thorough review,” the division mentioned in a press release on the social platform X on Saturday morning.
The transfer got here after an intense lobbying marketing campaign by right-wing activist Laura Loomer, who referred to as the incoming flights a “national security threat” in a flurry of social media posts beginning Friday that focused a nonprofit aiding in medical evacuations.
Simply weeks in the past, the nonprofit, HEAL Palestine, an Ohio-based group that helps Palestinian households and kids, started orchestrating what it referred to as the “largest single medical evacuation of injured children from Gaza to the U.S.,” bringing injured and in poor health youngsters from Gaza to america for care.
Thus far, the group says it has evacuated 63 injured youngsters for remedy, together with 11, from age 6 to fifteen, who had been flown to hospitals in 9 U.S. cities this month. Lots of the youngsters had misplaced limbs in the course of the battle in Gaza. They’re anticipated to journey to Egypt to rejoin their households as soon as their medical care is accomplished, in accordance with HEAL Palestine.
The group, which was based final yr and likewise operates meals kitchens in Gaza, didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Earlier this month, Dr. Zeena Salman, a co-founder of HEAL Palestine, mentioned in a press release that the medical evacuation flights had been a matter of life or loss of life. “These children could not wait,” Salman mentioned. “Their lives are at stake, and this mission is about giving them a future.”
Julia Gelatt, the affiliate director of the U.S. immigration coverage program on the Migration Coverage Institute, mentioned that greater than 9,000 folks with journey paperwork from the Palestinian Authority had entered america on customer visas within the 2024 fiscal yr.
“This move is consistent with the Trump administration’s overall treatment of immigrants as constituting a threat to U.S. public safety,” Gelatt mentioned. “But it is extremely hard to imagine how someone coming to the U.S. for lifesaving medical treatment would present a national security risk.”
Loomer, who wields extraordinary energy in shaping Trump administration selections over personnel and coverage regardless of not having an official position in authorities, mentioned she first realized of the flights earlier this month.
“I felt like this is something that needs attention,” she mentioned in an interview. “Under the Trump administration, they are actively importing Gazans into the U.S. Clearly this is not what we voted for.”
On social media, Loomer referred to as consideration to a video posted Aug. 6 by HEAL Palestine, displaying Palestinian youngsters arriving on the San Francisco airport.
She subsequently posted about flights to St. Louis, San Antonio and Houston and claimed with out offering proof that the nonprofit was linked to Hamas, tagging state and federal officers in her posts.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, responded to her late Friday on X that he was “deeply concerned about the incoming flights” and was making inquiries.
Loomer mentioned she spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday night time to alert him to the flights and what she referred to as the specter of an Islamic invasion.
The State Division didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Loomer has an extended historical past of anti-Islam activism. In 2017, she wrote a social media put up that cheered the drowning deaths of two,000 refugees who had been attempting to flee violence in Syria and different nations with massive Muslim populations by crossing the Mediterranean.
For years, she has pushed for the Muslim Brotherhood, the Sunni Islamist motion, to be designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. authorities, lobbying each members of Congress and the administration. Final week, Rubio mentioned such a designation from the State Division was “in the works.”
Medical flights for kids affected by the battle in Gaza have been occurring for nicely over a yr, organized by a wide range of charities.
Dr. Mohammad Subeh, an emergency room doctor who volunteers for HEAL Palestine, mentioned that he had beforehand handled among the youngsters who lately arrived within the San Francisco Bay Space throughout his time in Gaza. He mentioned that the accidents included orthopedic trauma and extreme burns and that they had been exacerbated by malnutrition.
“I am saddened to see fear and hate permeate within a small yet vocal segment of our society, whereby people have dehumanized children,” he mentioned, by pushing for insurance policies to withhold “life- and limb-saving care.”
Andrew Miller, a former senior State Division official on Israeli-Palestinian affairs within the Biden administration, mentioned that Gaza residents may solely get visas to the U.S. by showing at an embassy in Jerusalem, Cairo or Amman, Jordan, and bear safety checks.
“What’s more, just to get to a U.S. Embassy outside of Gaza, the Israeli military and security services had to clear them and anyone accompanying them,” he mentioned, including: “From what I saw, any insinuation that we were taking an unusual security risk in these cases is baseless.”
Initially Printed: August 16, 2025 at 7:08 PM PDT
