By: Jason Hopkins, Daily Caller News Foundation
Immigration experts are warning that a reported Biden administration plan to import Palestinians as refugees would pose a unique threat to the United States.
Internal federal government documents leaked to the media on Tuesday indicated that the Biden White House is considering options on how to provide permanent safe haven to Palestinians living in war-torn Gaza. While no official plan has been announced or implemented, many in the government and immigration field have sounded the alarm on the potential consequences of such a move.
Experts who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation framed the reported plan as contrary to the country’s interests, warned of the risks of importing poorly-vetted foreign nationals with potential terror ties and encouraged the Biden administration to instead relocate these refugees to a nearby region within the Middle East.
“This is an absurd plan that places woke ideology above the public safety and national security concerns of American citizens,” Matt O’Brien, director of investigations for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, told the DCNF.
O’Brien noted that Hamas is no longer just a designated terrorist organization in the Gaza strip, but the official government of the enclave: “That means an inordinate number of Gazans are going to have direct ties to Hamas — because they voted it into power — and it will be impossible to vet them because we can’t trust records compiled by their chosen government,” he said.
“The smarter thing to do would be to arrange for a third country in the Middle East to provide temporary refuge to any Gazan’s who are allegedly in need of protection,” he continued. “But allowing Gazans into the U.S. in large numbers will only set America up for a large-scale national security disaster.”
Congressional leaders have also noted the ideological extremism in the Gazan population, and what that could mean for everyday Americans if they are welcomed here en masse.
Iowa GOP Sen. Joni Ernst led a delegation of 34 Republican senators earlier this week in demanding President Joe Biden stop his purported plan. In their letter to the president, the senators noted the incredibly high number of Gazans currently supporting Hamas and how, because of the numerous logistical hurdles that come with importing migrants from a war-torn region halfway around the world, it would be nearly impossible to conduct proper vetting of all of them.
“We are confused as to why the United States is willing to accept Gazan refugees when even nearby Arab countries supportive of the Palestinian cause refuse to take them in due to security concerns,” the senators wrote.
Their letter demanded answers on how many Gazans the administration wants to accept and how exactly applicants will be screened to ensure no one with terrorist sympathies is allowed into the U.S.
If polling in the region is accurate, the American government will have a difficult time weeding out those who have extremists ties.
A survey released by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Research in March found that 71% of Palestinians supported Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre on Israeli civilians. A mere 5% of the Palestinians surveyed said they believed the Oct. 7 attack to be a war crime.
Polls conducted in months past also indicated a rise in support for Hamas among the Gazan population after the Oct. 7 massacre.
“Every American should be deeply concerned about reports that the Biden administration is planning on implementing a program to bring Gazans into the United States,” Eric Ruark, director of research and public relations for NumbersUSA, stated to the DCNF.
Ruark echoed calls to relocate Gazans displaced by the fighting to a nearby region, in lieu of using the crisis as another way to bring more foreign nationals permanently into the U.S. He predicted that the administration would make a humanitarian argument in favor of relocating Gazans to the U.S., but added that the White House’s border policies made it clear that “humanitarianism is the least of its priorities.”
Egypt has long maintained security measures to keep Gazans from entering the Sinai, including a concrete wall topped with concertina wire and military personnel at the Rafah border.
It remains to be seen how exactly the Biden administration would go about bringing the Gazan refugees over. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
One proposal involves implementing the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program to accept those with American ties and already have escaped into Egypt, according to government documents reviewed by CBS News. Top administration officials have also reportedly discussed processing Gazans as refugees if they have American relatives.
The Palestinians who pass a slate of security, medical and eligibility screenings would qualify for refugee status, which can then offer them permanent residency, resettlement benefits and a pathway to U.S. citizenship.
All the logistics that come with such strategies, however, would require coordination and cooperation with Egypt, a bordering Arab country that has so far remained vehemently opposed to accepting a large number of Gazans — a detail that isn’t lost on critics of the Biden administration’s plan.
“Egypt and other Arab countries are refusing to take in Palestinian refugees from Gaza,” RJ Hauman, president of the National Immigration Center for Enforcement (NICE), said in a statement to the DCNF. “Instead of recognizing why that is and acting in our national interest, Biden wants to ramp up the dangerous trend of bringing in unvetted and potentially dangerous individuals who hate us.”
