As the war in the Middle East rages on, dozens of congressional Democrats are calling on President Joe Biden to shield Palestinians residing in the United States from deportation.
In a letter spearheaded by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), some 103 Democrats asked President Biden to “designate the Palestinian territories for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and/or authorize Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for Palestinians present in the United States.”
TPS offers temporary legal status to nationals of specifically designated countries experiencing armed conflicts, natural disasters, or other extraordinary conditions that make their departure or deportation untenable. The secretary of Homeland Security can designate a country for TPS, providing its citizens who are already in the United States with a work permit and protection from deportation for a limited period of time.
DED, meanwhile, is authorized by the president himself, and it merely protects the beneficiaries from deportation. DED is currently authorized for Liberia, which is still recovering from back-to-back civil wars and an Ebola epidemic; and Hong Kong, where civil rights have been drastically rolled back under Beijing’s tightened grip.
In light of ongoing Israel–Hamas war, the Democrats argued, Palestinians living in the United States should not be forced to return to either the besieged Gaza Strip or the relatively more peaceful West Bank.
“Following the horrific October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas and Israel’s ensuing military response, conditions in the Palestinian territories have greatly deteriorated,” they wrote in the Nov. 8 letter.
In Hamas-controlled Gaza, nearly half of all housing units have been damaged or destroyed as Hamas terrorists deliberately embed themselves in densely populated residential and commercial areas to use civilians as human shields against Israeli bombing raids. The access to food, clean water, and medical care is also becoming increasingly difficult in Gaza, with some health facilities hit by bombardment and many others crippled by the lack of electricity.
While the West Bank is not an immediate war zone, Democrat lawmakers argued that the situation there does not warrant safe return of its citizens, citing recent reports of deadly clashes between Jewish settlers and their Palestinian neighbors.
Should the Biden administration grant the Democrats’ requests, it would affect at least 7,241 individuals currently inside the country with travel documents issued by the Palestinian Authority, which is dominated by Hamas’s rival faction, Fatah, and governs parts of the West Bank.
Republicans Warn of Potential Palestinian Refugee Wave
Wednesday’s letter comes as prominent Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, warn that a potential mass exodus of Palestinians fleeing from the war could not only worsen America’s illegal immigration crisis but also exacerbate the growth of domestic Islamist extremism.Shortly after Hamas launched a brutal killing and kidnapping spree in Israel, President Trump took to his social media and suggested that the United States should seal its border to prevent the potential import of terrorists.
“The same people that raided Israel are pouring into our once beautiful USA, through our TOTALLY OPEN SOUTHERN BORDER,” he wrote in an Oct. 9 post on Truth Social.
“We aren’t bringing in anyone from Gaza or Syria or Somalia or Yemen or Libya, or anywhere else that threatens our security,” the former president said at an Oct. 16 rally in Iowa, outlining an expansion of the travel ban on predominantly Muslim nations he implemented during his first term in the White House.
“If you’re coming from somewhere full of people who want to kill Americans, we will not let you in,” the 2024 Republican frontrunner told his supporters.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who styles himself as the “most pro-Israel governor in America,” also openly rejects the idea of opening doors to Palestinian refugees.
“We cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees, I am not going to do that,” Mr. DeSantis said at a campaign event in Iowa. “Not all of them are Hamas, but they are all antisemitic. None of them believe in Israel’s right to exist.”
In an interview with CBS News, when asked how he could be so sure that all Palestinians from Gaza are antisemitics, the Republican governor said the education system there is perpetuating a “toxic culture” that prepares “very young kids to commit terrorist attacks.”
“They did elect Hamas,” he said, referring to Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 election held in Gaza and the West Bank. “I think if we were to import large numbers of those to the United States, I think it would increase antisemitism in this country, and I think it would increase anti-Americanism in this country.”
