Scores of House Democrats are pressing the Trump administration to allow Palestinian children injured in the Israel-Hamas war to seek emergency medical care in the United States.
Earlier in the month, the State Department abruptly halted the issuance of visas for people from Gaza, including medical-humanitarian visas, citing a need to examine the process that allowed some of those visitors to enter the U.S. The official pause, as posted on the social platform X, came a day after the right-wing activist Laura Loomer attacked the humanitarian visas as a threat to national security.
In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, more than 140 House Democrats said the policy change was ill-conceived. They’re calling on the administration to reverse course and end the visa pause for the sake of providing injured children with “the medical care they desperately need.”
“It is wrong to prevent children who are caught in the middle of this horrific conflict from receiving lifesaving medical care,” the lawmakers wrote in the Aug. 25 letter, which was spearheaded by Reps. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich) and Kim Schrier (D-Wash.).
“In addition, this decision ignores the fact that all Palestinians leaving Gaza for medical treatment or to accompany family members receiving medical treatment are already subject to rigorous vetting by the Israeli government, including an Israeli security clearance, identity verification, and an assessment whether they are linked to Hamas,” they added.
The letter was endorsed by more than two-thirds of the House Democratic Caucus, including prominent defenders of Israel such as Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), Brad Schneider (Ill.) and Josh Gottheimer (N.J.).
A number of Palestinians had already entered the country on medical-humanitarian visas when Loomer, who has successfully lobbied for administrative changes over the course of the year, went on social media to condemn the new arrivals. Posting a video showing Palestinians arriving in San Francisco for medical treatments — travel facilitated by an Ohio-based nonprofit group helping those injured in the Israel-Hamas war — Loomer warned that the visitors posed a threat to public safety.
“Why are any Islamic invaders coming into the US under the Trump admin? This is a national security threat,” she posted on X on Aug. 15. “We didn’t vote for more Islamic immigration into the United States.”
A day later, the State Department posted its own message on X saying the visas would be temporarily paused.
“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 agency wrote.
Rubio has defended the move, saying it was made after “numerous” congressional offices contacted his department with evidence “that some of the organizations bragging about, and involved in, acquiring these visas have strong links to terrorist groups like Hamas.”
“It’s not just kids. It’s a bunch of adults that are accompanying them,” Rubio said in an Aug. 17 interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” program.
House Democrats are not convinced. In their letter, they’ve asked Rubio to specify the national security concerns that led his agency to halt the visas. They also want the department to provide a timeline governing its internal review.
Meanwhile, the lawmakers are urging the administration to exempt from the pause those Palestinians most in need of emergency medical attention.
“We appeal to you to immediately reverse the State Department’s decision and resume allowing those from Gaza with approved temporary medical-humanitarian visas to enter the United States to receive the lifesaving care they need,” the Democrats wrote.
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