The Trump administration has enacted a sweeping suspension of approvals of almost all types of visitor visas for Palestinian passport holders, according to American officials.
The new policy goes beyond the restrictions announced by U.S. officials recently on visitor visas for Palestinians from Gaza. Last week, the State Department also said it would not issue visas to Palestinian officials to attend the annual U.N. General Assembly in New York next month.
The more sweeping measures, laid out in an Aug. 18 cable sent by State Department headquarters to all U.S. embassies and consulates, would also prevent many Palestinians from the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in the Palestinian diaspora from entering the United States on various types of nonimmigrant visas, according to four U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
The new measures affect visas for medical treatment, university studies, visits to friends or relatives and business travel, at least temporarily.
It was not clear what prompted the visa curbs, but they follow declarations by a number of U.S. allies that they plan to recognize a Palestinian state in the coming weeks. Some American officials have strongly opposed this push for recognition, which Israel has condemned.
The United States has been Israel’s staunchest supporter throughout its nearly two-year-old war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, even as international criticism has steadily mounted over the conduct of the Israeli military campaign and the humanitarian suffering it has caused.
The new restrictions cover anyone holding only a Palestinian passport, which were first issued in the 1990s when Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, or P.L.O., signed agreements establishing a semiautonomous Palestinian government in parts of the West Bank and Gaza. They do not apply to Palestinians with dual nationalities using other passports or those who have already obtained visas.
The State Department confirmed that it had ordered diplomatsto enforce the new restrictions. It also said in a statement that the American administration was taking “concrete steps in compliance with U.S. law and our national security in regards to announced visa restrictions” for Palestinians.
To deny the visas, the Trump administration is using a mechanism that is normally applied much more narrowly. It is typically used to demand more documentation or information from specific individuals to make decisions on their cases.
In recent days, U.S. consular officers were told to invoke the mechanism — section 221-G of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 — to refuse visitor visas to anyone using a Palestinian passport in applications, at least temporarily, the officials said. “Effective immediately, consular officers are instructed to refuse under 221(g) of the Immigration Nationality Act (INA) all otherwise eligible Palestinian Authority passport holders using that passport to apply for a nonimmigrant visa,” the State Department cable said.
Former U.S. officials said the broad use of the measure was tantamount to a blanket rejection of Palestinian visa requests.
“It’s an open-ended refusal,” said Hala Rharrit, who served as an Arabic-language spokeswoman for the State Department until April 2024, when she resigned in protest of U.S. policy on the war in Gaza.
Kerry Doyle, the former lead attorney for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Biden administration, said the administration should be open about its decision making. “If it’s a true ban, then it’s concerning to me in that they should be transparent about it and then make their arguments for the basis of such a ban,” she said.
“Are there true national security concerns?” Ms. Doyle asked. “Or is it politically based to support the position of Israel and/or to avoid uncomfortable issues being raised when folks get here if they speak out about the issues over the war? Why didn’t they just put them on the visa ban list?”
U.S. officials had announced two other narrower measures in recent weeks to limit visas for Palestinians.
On Aug. 16, the State Department said that it had paused approvals of visitor visas for the roughly two million Palestinians from Gaza, a pathway for those seeking medical care in the United States and others. That statement came soon after a right-wing American activist, Laura Loomer, described Palestinians from Gaza being brought to the United States for treatment by Heal Palestine, a humanitarian organization, as “a national security threat.”
HEAL Palestine has said it brought children from Gaza to U.S. hospitals for care, including many who have lost limbs during the war.
Then on Friday, the State Department said Secretary of State Marco Rubio would not issue visas to Palestinian officials, with the aim of preventing them from attending the General Assembly. The State Department said Mr. Rubio was doing this to hold the Palestinian Authority and the P.L.O. “accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace.”
The State Department said on Saturday that the ban covers Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority and head of the P.L.O., and about 80 other Palestinians. Mr. Abbas’s office expressed “deep regret and astonishment” at Mr. Rubio’s decision and called on the Trump administration to “reconsider and reverse” the move.
The Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank, has praised the plans by some Western countries to recognize a Palestinian state. On Friday, the State Department said the Palestinian governing body should end it “efforts to secure the unilateral recognition of a conjectural Palestinian state.”
France and Canada recently announced that they planned to recognize a Palestinian state at the meeting next month, and Britain said it would, too, if certain conditions were met. Those would be the first countries from the Group of 7 allied nations to do so; 147 nations already recognize such a state.
Julia Gelatt, the associate director of the U.S. immigration policy program at the Migration Policy Institute, has said that more than 9,000 people with travel documents from the Palestinian Authority entered the United States on visitor visas in the 2024 fiscal year.
Many Palestinians have relatives in the United States, especially in Chicago, Paterson, N.J., and Anaheim, Calif.
Lafi Adeeb, the mayor of Turmus Ayya, a village in the West Bank with many dual Palestinian American citizens, said he was disappointed to learn the State Department was creating obstacles for Palestinian passport holders to obtain visas.
He said thousands of people with roots in his village were in the United States, including many of his children.
“It feels like Palestinians are always treated in an unjust way,” he said.
Edward Wong reports on global affairs, U.S. foreign policy and the State Department for The Times.
Adam Rasgon is a reporter for The Times in Jerusalem, covering Israeli and Palestinian affairs.
Natan Odenheimer is a Times reporter in Jerusalem, covering Israeli and Palestinian affairs.
Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy for The Times.
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