Kyle Dunphey
Thu, October 19, 2023 a
Palestinians walk by the destroyed building of Al Nuseirat Bakery following an Israeli airstrike at Nusseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. | Hatem Moussa, Associated Press
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox says he’s unsure whether Palestinian refugees will resettle in the Beehive State. But if history is any indication, its unlikely the U.S. will open its doors to Palestinians like it did for Ukrainians or Afghans.
In the last 10 years, fewer than 600 Palestinian refugees have come to the U.S. under the traditional resettlement program, according to data from the U.S. Department of State. Last year, as the U.S. resettled nearly 60,000 refugees from around the world, just 56 Palestinians were admitted.
And in the days following Hamas’ attack on Israel, calls to bar Palestinians from entering the U.S. have ramped up, including from Utah GOP Rep. Burgess Owens, who recently introduced a bill that would block the Biden administration from issuing visas to people from Gaza.
Cox on Thursday told reporters during the monthly PBS news conference that he’s hopeful neighboring countries will step up but that Utah “cares deeply about refugees.”
“We have a history of taking care of refugees,” Cox said. “There would need to be an extreme vetting process here to make sure that we are very careful about who comes into our country, that’s always critical. We would have to work very closely with the Department of Justice and Homeland Security and others who would have the burden of making sure that people who aren’t sympathetic to destroying Israel and Jews are coming into our country.”
Cox said he’ll have those conversations “if and when the administration makes a decision.”
But as of now, there is virtually no avenue for Palestinians displaced by the conflict to resettle in the U.S., says Aden Batar, director of migration and refugee services at Catholic Community Service’s Salt Lake office.
“That is the administration’s policy and we as a resettlement agency can only resettle what the State Department decides every year. Pretty much all we can do is advocate and give advice to the administration,” Batar said.
Thousands of people displaced from conflict in Afghanistan and Ukraine have resettled in the U.S. in recent years, most doing so through special immigrant visas or humanitarian parole status. State data suggests around 1,000 Afghans resettled in Utah, and according to the Utah Ukrainian Association about 700 Ukrainians are living here since the Russian invasion, most of them sponsored by U.S. citizens through the Biden administration’s Uniting for Ukraine program.
As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens, Batar has not heard of any similar program in the works for Palestinians. According to the United Nations, in just 10 days nearly 1 million Palestinians were displaced.
Most Palestinians living in Utah are here under student or work visas — Batar estimates there to be around 1,000. But even those avenues are now likely closed, as most of the recently displaced Palestinians cannot reach a U.S. embassy.
“People are trapped ... they don’t have anywhere to go,” he said.
Without the visa pathway, displaced people often enter the U.S. through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees mandate, a process that can take years.
However UNHCR does not operate in the Gaza Strip. Instead, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees oversees the region, although they don’t resettle, which is partly why so few Palestinians end up in the U.S. The U.N. estimates there to be roughly 6 million Palestinian refugees worldwide, most living in camps in the West Bank or Gaza, and abroad in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
On Thursday, Cox extended his sympathy to displaced Palestinians
“Our hearts are broken for you as well. This is a deeply difficult and of course divisive issue. I will say I have zero empathy for Hamas, at all. And Hamas is bad for Palestinians. Hamas is evil. And I hope that Palestinians everywhere will stand up and speak up and reject what is happening,” Cox said.
Utah’s Jewish community was the recent target of a bomb threat, with the Congregation Kol Ami synagogue forced to evacuate following the attack by Hamas. Cox said anyone who harms, threatens or harasses Jewish Utahns “will be met with swift justice to the fullest extent of the law.”
“I would say the exact same thing to our Palestinians. They are our neighbors, they are Utahns and we love them and we’re grateful that they’re here. And we extend those same protections to you as well,” he said.
Gitanjali Poonia
Tue, October 17, 2023
Palestinians take shelter in a United Nations-run school from the ongoing Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip in Nuiserat refugee camp on Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023. | Hatem Moussa, Associated Press
Utah Rep. Burgess Owens co-sponsored a bill that would prevent President Joe Biden from issuing visas to Palestinians to come to the U.S.
“Following Hamas’ barbaric massacre of innocent civilians, including 30 Americans, allowing unvetted Palestinians with ties to terrorism to resettle in our communities gravely compromises our national security,” said Owens, a Republican who represents Utah’s 4th Congressional District, according to a press release obtained by the Deseret News.
The new bill comes after Hamas attacked civilians in Israel on Oct. 7, which led Israel to declare war on Hamas and prepare for a ground invasion of Gaza. An estimated 3,000 civilians have been killed in Gaza and at least 1,400 Israelis have been killed.
The legislation, dubbed the GAZA Act, which stands for Guaranteeing Aggressors Zero Admissions Act, would block the Department of Homeland Security from allowing Palestinians into the U.S. through the parole program, which allows foreign nationals to remain in the country temporarily.
“Before looking to our shores, the Arab nations in the region that support the Palestinian cause must first do their part. The GAZA Act bolsters national security and protects our homeland from the horrors of terrorism,” said Owens.
Gaza is run by Hamas, an organization designated by the U.S. government as a foreign terrorist organization.
Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wisc., and Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., introduced the legislation Friday.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, a grassroots civil rights organization, said in a statement on X that the proposed bill “is a shameful display of politicizing human suffering.”
“Over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, the majority of whom are refugees and half of them children, are enduring dire humanitarian conditions,” the statement added.
An estimated 450,000 immigrants from Afghanistan, Ukraine and Latin America have come to the U.S. through the parole program, according to a report from a bipartisan pro-immigration group.
WILL WEISSERT
Thu, October 19, 2023
Palestinians wait to cross into Egypt at the Rafah border crossing in the Gaza Strip, Oct. 16, 2023. Former President Donald Trump and other top Republicans are issuing increasingly urgent calls for the U.S. to seal its borders against a potential mass exodus of Palestinians fleeing war in the Gaza Strip, suggesting that a surge in civilian refugees could allow potential extremists into the country.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump and other top Republicans want the U.S. to seal its borders against a potential mass exodus of Palestinians fleeing war in the Gaza Strip, suggesting that a surge of civilian refugees could allow extremists into the country.
But such an onslaught is highly unlikely.
People fleeing the fighting are largely barred from getting out of Gaza, and U.S. law already gives authorities broad leeway to deny people entry into the country if they present security risks. Cases of extremists crossing into the U.S. illegally are also virtually non-existent.
Here's a closer look at what's being said and what the realities are.
WHO WANTS TO BAN PALESTINIAN REFUGEES FROM THE U.S.?
Trump has been the most outspoken on this issue. The former president vowed while campaigning in Iowa this week to bar refugees from Gaza and immediately expand a Muslim travel ban he imposed via executive order during his first administration.
Pointing to the Oct. 7 attacks and the taking of hostages by the Iran-backed militant group Hamas that sparked Israel's retaliation and war in Gaza, Trump also suggested in an online post that “The same people that raided Israel are pouring into our once beautiful USA, through our TOTALLY OPEN SOUTHERN BORDER.”
Trump's original ban barred travelers from several predominantly Muslim countries but was heavily criticized as discriminatory and drew legal challenges all the way to the Supreme Court. The high court’s justices eventually upheld the Trump administration’s third attempt at the ban, which included travelers from North Korea and some from Venezuela. It was revoked after President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.
Gaza refugees also have become a flashpoint among many of the presidential hopefuls vying to become Trump’s principal challenger and cut into the commanding early lead the former president has built in the 2024 Republican primary.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the U.S. should not take in any Palestinian refugees fleeing Gaza because they “are all antisemitic.” Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who was also Trump’s ex-ambassador to the United Nations, countered that “America has has always been sympathetic to the fact that you can separate civilians from terrorists.” Never Back Down, DeSantis' super PAC, is running an ad implying Haley is soft on allowing refugees into the country, which the Haley campaign rebuts as “false.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence suggested that the U.S. “begin with women and children” when it comes to accepting Palestinians from Gaza, while South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott endorsed the country turning away Gaza refugees because authorities will be unable to determine “who is safe to bring in and who’s not.”
WILL THERE BE A CRUSH OF PALESTINIAN REFUEES HEADED FOR THE U.S.?
Probably not. Those fleeing the northern part of Gaza, where Israel has warned that a ground war is coming, have enough trouble simply moving to the southern part of the territory due to Israeli airstrikes and rockets fired by Hamas.
Israel has fortified its border with Gaza's 141-square-mile (365-square-kilometer) territory to prevent militants from sneaking into the country. But rather than triggering border runs, the displacement has unleashed a humanitarian crisis throughout Gaza, where nearly 1 million people are facing severe shortages of housing, food and clean drinking water.
Those making it to the southern part of the territory can usually go no further because Egypt, the only other country that borders Gaza, has closed its crossing, at least for now. Even if crossings eventually resume, Arab and European countries have so far been hesitant to take large numbers of Palestinian refugees, especially after receiving many people fleeing recent displacement in Syria.
COULDN'T PALESTINIAN REFUGEES EVENTUALLY GET TO THE U.S.?
The United States does accept refugees from around the world annually, but the process often takes years and ultimately admits relatively few people.
Prospective refugees are generally referred to the State and Homeland Security departments by the U.N.’s refugee agency. U.S. authorities then vet them to determine if they can really be considered refugees, and for things like ties to extremists.
During the last fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the U.S. aimed to admit 125,000 people but ultimately only admitted about 60,000. The biggest numbers of resettled refugees came from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, Afghanistan and Burma. Only 56 came from the Palestinian territories.
Another option is the White House and DHS offering some Palestinians humanitarian parole, allowing them to come temporarily to the U.S. Historically, that has been used to let people from places like Cuba and Vietnam come to the U.S., though Ukrainians recently fleeing Russia's war have been allowed to stay for up to two years if they have a U.S. financial backer.
Biden has been vocal about Israel's right to defend itself. The president traveled to Israel on Wednesday and announced humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza that would flow from Egypt and included $100 million in U.S. funding. But his administration has given little indication that it would be willing to make humanitarian parole exceptions for people fleeing Gaza.
WOULD BANS IMPROVE U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY?
Many of the perceived threats Trump and other Republicans are most worried about stopping are already addressed by existing U.S. law. The Immigration and Nationality Act already blocks potential extremist threats under Section 212 (f), which gives broad authority to bar people who aren’t U.S. citizens from entering the country if doing so would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.”
Meanwhile, reports of extremists entering the United States by land from Mexico or Canada are almost unheard of. Alex Nowrasteh of the pro-immigration Cato Institute documented nine foreign-born extremists who entered the United States illegally from 1975 through last year. Three entered Mexico in 1984 when they were 5 years old or younger and were convicted of plotting to attack Fort Dix, New Jersey, in 2007. The other six entered through Canada.
That’s not to say it couldn’t happen. Arrests for people crossing the border illegally from Mexico for the last fiscal year are expected to be the second-highest on record after the previous year’s 2.2 million. DHS said in a national “threat assessment” this year that people with “potential terrorism connections” continue to attempt to enter the country.
Arrests of people who crossed illegally from Mexico and were on the Terrorist Screening Dataset, known as the “terrorist watchlist,” jumped to 151 from October through August, compared to 98 during the previous 12-month period and 15 the year before. It was just 11 in the previous four years combined.
But the list is a compilation of names that have aroused suspicion for any number of reasons and includes people from all over the world. The increase in the number of individuals on it also remains statistically small given the overall rise in migrants apprehended on the border.
“There is strict national security vetting to determine whether individuals coming from anywhere in the world have ties to terrorist organizations," White House spokesman Andrew Bates said.
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Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed to this report.
Israeli airstrikes have bombarded refugee camps inside Gaza. The eight camps were set up decades ago for Palestinian refugees fleeing wars.
Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates reject Gaza refugees
Wed, October 18, 2023
House Republicans and GOP candidates for the 2024 presidential nomination want the US to deny entry to Palestinians fleeing the crisis in Gaza, but decades-long international agreements have already complicated the resettlement process for many Palestinians, and the US does not intend to change course.
Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes and are sheltering in the south of Gaza while others are stranded in its north following a barrage of Israeli strikes and a “complete siege” that has cut off food, water and fuel.
In the middle of the crisis, a group of Republican lawmakers in the US House of Representatives has introduced a bill – named the Guaranteeing Aggressors Zero Admission or GAZA Act – that would block virtually any Palestinian passport holder from admission or receiving a new visa into the US.
“The last thing America ought to do is trust identity documents issued by the radicals that oversee these territories,” Republican US Rep Tom Tiffany said in a statement.
And on the campaign trail, candidates for the GOP nomination including Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis have relied on inflammatory statements to reaffirm their fierce opposition to Gaza refugees.
Palestinians already represent only a small fraction of refugees who are resettled into the US each year, largely because of US adherence to a United Nations convention that blocks Palestinians from the same path to admission as other nationalities.
A 1951 convention under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that defined such criteria left out Palestinians in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria as well as East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. A subsequent agency, the US-supported United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, provides emergency aid and other services but cannot refer people to resettlement in the US or elsewhere.
Within the last fiscal year, the US accepted only 56 Palestinians out of more than 60,000 total refugees it resettled, according to the US Department of State. Over the last decade, the US has admitted fewer than 600 Palestinian refugees.
The process for Palestinian refugees is also densely layered and time consuming, leaving them facing months or years of security screenings, credibility interviews and other background and medical checks.
During a trip to Iowa last week, far-right Florida Governor Ron DeSantis flat out stated that the US “cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees”.
He baselessly asserted Gaza citizens “are all antisemitic” and “none of them believe in Israel’s right to exist”.
When pressed on his statements during an interview with CBS Face the Nation on 15 October, he claimed without evidence that a “toxic culture” in Palestinian schools prepares “young kids to commit terrorist attacks” and that admitting Gaza citizens into the US would “increase anti-Americanism in this country”.
He told right-wing commentator Megyn Kelly on 17 October that “what they seek is the destruction of the Jewish state,” what he claimed is not limited to Hamas but a “widespread, deeply embedded belief amongst Palestinian Arabs in the Gaza Strip”.
In remarks in Iowa on 16 October echoing his offensive rhetoric swiping broadly at majority-Muslim countries, former president Donald Trump claimed “they want to blow up your country” and pledged that the US would not allow “anyone from Gaza, Syria, Somalia, Yemen or Libya, or anywhere else that threatens our security” should he return to the White House.
He also pledged to “revoke the student visas of radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners at our colleges and universities,” an apparent reference to protests against Israeli military actions and in solidarity with Palestinian citizens wrongfully conflated as antisemitic.
Republican US Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas also has called on US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to “immediately deport any foreign national – including and especially any alien on a student visa – that has expressed support for Hamas and its murderous attacks on Israel”.
On Fox News on 17 October, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley said she has “always” rejected the idea that Gaza refugees should be allowed to enter the US, and that “those in the region should take them” instead.
A spokesperson for Ms Haley said: “Hamas-supporting countries like Iran, Qatar and Turkey should take any refugees.”
US Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina also does not support Gaza refugees entering the US.
According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, at least one million people were forced from their homes in Gaza within the last week, and more than 500,000 displaced Palestinians in Gaza are taking shelter in the south of Gaza.
“An unknown number of people, whom [the organisation] is no longer able to assist, remain on our premises in the northern part of the Strip,” the agency said on 18 October.
Meanwhile, “not one shipment of aid has been allowed” into Gaza since the start of the siege in the wake of surprise Hamas attacks in Israel, with a blockade putting the region on “the brink of a major health and sanitation crisis,” according to the organisation.
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