The United States has announced that it is halting all visitor visas for individuals from Gaza pending a “full and thorough” review.
This decision comes after social media posts about Palestinian refugees sparked furious reactions from right-wingers, particularly from far-right activist and Trump ally Laura Loomer.
Loomer claimed on X that Palestinians “who claim to be refugees from Gaza” had entered the US via San Francisco and Houston this month, prompting Republican lawmakers to speak out against the alleged arrivals.
Loomer expressed her outrage, saying, “how is allowing for Islamic immigrants to come into the US America First policy?” She also reported further Palestinian arrivals in Missouri and claimed that “several US Senators and members of Congress” had texted her to express their fury.
Republican lawmakers, including Chip Roy of Texas and Randy Fine of Florida, publicly condemned the arrivals, with Fine describing them as a “national security risk.”
In response to the backlash, the State Department announced on Saturday that it was stopping visas for “individuals from Gaza” while it conducted a “full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to issue a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas in recent days.”
According to a news agency, the US issued 640 visas to holders of the Palestinian Authority travel document in May. These B1/B2 visitor visas permit Palestinians to seek medical treatment in the US.
Loomer welcomed the State Department’s announcement, saying, “It’s amazing how fast we can get results from the Trump administration.” However, she later posted that more needed to be done to “highlight the crisis of the invasion happening in our country.”
This decision comes as Israel intensifies its attacks on Gaza, where at least 61,827 people have been killed in the past 22 months. The United Nations has warned that “widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease” are driving a rise in famine-related deaths.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pushing to seize Gaza City as part of a takeover of the Strip, forcibly displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to concentration zones.