Within the wake of Hamas’ terrorist assault in opposition to Israel, and the outbreak of anti-Israel protests throughout the nation, some Republicans are turning their immigration considerations away from the border and specializing in stopping international nationals who categorical anti-Israel or pro-Hamas views from reaching Israel. To the USA legally as properly.
The Hamas terrorist assaults instantly drew the eye of conservatives and Republicans to the southern border, and the hazard of terrorists getting into by way of the Border Patrol.
Nonetheless, the assaults and protests which have emerged on faculty campuses and cities throughout the USA have additionally raised new questions on potential restrictions on authorized immigration — together with the refugee course of.
2024 presidential candidates and GOP lawmakers have referred to as on the USA to not settle for refugees from Gaza. Reps. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., and Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., have launched laws that will forestall anybody from Gaza from being accepted as a refugee, whereas a number of 2024 candidates have promised to do the identical.
GOP lawmakers demand deportation of pro-Hamas scholar visa holders: ‘They aren’t welcome right here’

Professional-Palestinian demonstrators attend a protest at Columbia College in New York Metropolis, New York on Thursday, October 12, 2023. (Julia Bonavita/Fox Information Digital)
Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis stated throughout an occasion: “I don’t know what Biden will do, however we can’t settle for folks from Gaza into this nation as refugees.” “In the event you have a look at their conduct, you can see that they don’t seem to be all Hamas, however they’re all anti-Semites. And none of them consider in Israel’s proper to exist.”
Former President Donald Trump just lately stated: “We’re not bringing anybody in from Gaza.”
Individually, a number of lawmakers and 2024 candidates have expressed help for revoking visas for international nationals seen as having celebrated enthusiastically at scholar protests and elsewhere. This displays comparable actions in EuropeThere have been additionally calls to withdraw visas from foreigners who make pro-Hamas speeches.
In the USA, Republican Representatives from Indiana, Jim Banks and Jeff Duncan, wrote to the administration demanding the deportation of Hamas supporters. within the senate, Sin. Marco Rubio, Republican from Florida.It launched laws to cancel visas for international nationals who “help or embrace terrorist exercise.”
Members of the Republican Social gathering current a invoice to stop Palestinian refugees from getting into the USA
“America is probably the most beneficiant nation on Earth, however we can’t permit international nationals who help terrorist teams like Hamas and march in our streets calling for an intifada to enter or stay in our nation,” Rubio stated in a press assertion.
This represents a shift in immigration priorities that, for many Republicans, have targeted totally on unlawful immigration and the southern border because the migrant disaster erupted in 2021. However authorized immigration restrictions have been a key a part of the Trump administration — together with on journey. A ban on Muslim-majority international locations, a discount within the variety of refugees to 18,000 per yr, and efforts to implement further screening of immigrants. The Biden administration has rolled again many of those efforts, with the refugee cap now standing at 125,000 per yr.
Trump has promised a variety of sweeping reforms to authorized immigration if re-elected, together with increasing the journey ban on Muslim-majority international locations and intensifying ideological screening of all folks coming to the USA.
Stephen Miller, a former Trump White Home adviser who performed a central function in these restrictions in the course of the Trump administration, instructed Fox Information Digital that he welcomes the elevated curiosity in authorized immigration from his fellow Republicans, however desires to see extra.
Dozens of pro-Palestinian faculty college students have a good time assault on Israel: ‘Not justified’
“I believe there’s now a tragically lengthy overdue realization that now we have made it too straightforward on this nation for individuals who get scholar visas, inexperienced playing cards, work visas, vacationer visas, and so forth., who not solely help the worth system of our nation, however we reject it.” Severely – it is extremely harmful to be handed on to second and third generations of immigrants and thus turn out to be a multi-generational drawback.“
Miller, who’s backing President Trump for re-election in 2024, stated he doesn’t consider Republican requires restrictions on refugees from Gaza go additional.
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“We have now already gotten to the place we’re in our present state of affairs over many many years by accepting refugees from everywhere in the world,” he stated. “So this isn’t only a drawback of 1 nation or two international locations or three international locations. This can be a world drawback.”
Miller desires to see a whole suspension of the refugee program and “aggressive denial of visas to folks in each nation who fail to help our mind-set about America.”
“The proper variety of immigrants who ought to be introduced into our nation who hate America or hate Jews or hate the West is zero,” he stated.