Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that the State Department has suspended visitors’ visas for Gazans because he had received “evidence” that certain organizations facilitating visas in the United States “have solid links with terrorist groups such as Hamas”, without providing additional details.
The State Department announced on Saturday in a position on X that this would stop all visitors’ visa for Gaza, as it examines the process that would temporarily allow them in the United States for medical and humanitarian reasons.
Rubio told CBS on Sunday “Face The Nation” that “evidence” had been presented to the Trump administration by “many congress offices” and that the ministry had received “the awareness of several congress offices asking questions on this subject”.
He did not give details on the evidence or offices that presented him. The extreme right Trump Ally Laura Loomer took the credit of the Visas for the Visas following his claims according to which families arriving from Gaza “threaten our national security”.
Loomer has specifically criticized Heal Palestine, an American non-profit organization dedicated to the provision of critical aid to Palestinian families, in particular by bringing children suffering from serious injuries, psychological trauma and evil to receive care in the United States. The group says it evacuated 63 children injured and 148 people in total.
The group, which refers the Palestinians to the Middle East after being treated in American hospitals, criticized the Trump administration’s decision to stop visitors’ visas, saying that in a press release, “this is a medical treatment program, not a refugee resettlement program.”
In May, the United States issued nearly 4,000 visas to people with passports from the Palestinian authority allowing them to request medical treatment in America. This number also includes Palestinians living outside Gaza, as in the West Bank.
Rubio said on Sunday that if a “small number” of visas had been issued to children, “they come with adults accompanying them, of course, and we will interrupt this program and re -evaluate how these visas are verified.”
“We are not going to be in partnership with groups that have links or sympathies to Hamas,” he continued, without naming specific groups or providing more information to corroborate the concerns of the administration.
CNN contacted the State Department for more information on the evidence cited by Rubio.
President Donald Trump recognized last month that there was a “real famine” in Gaza, breaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of which Trump is more and more frustrated.
“I see it, and you cannot simulate this. So we will be even more involved,” Trump told journalists in the humanitarian crisis.
