Trump administration halts visas for people from Gaza after Loomer questions arrivals
The State Department said Saturday the visas would be stopped while it looks into how 'a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas' were issued in recent days.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday told 'Face the Nation' on CBS that the action came after 'outreach from multiple congressional offices asking questions about it."
Rubio said there were 'just a small number' of the visas issued to children in need of medical aid but that they were accompanied by adults. The congressional offices reached out with evidence that 'some of the organizations bragging about and involved in acquiring these visas have strong links to terrorist groups like Hamas,' he asserted, without providing evidence or naming those organizations.
As a result, he said, 'we are going to pause this program and reevaluate how those visas are being vetted and what relationship, if any, has there been by these organizations to the process of acquiring those visas.'
Loomer on Friday posted videos on X of children from Gaza arriving earlier this month in San Francisco and Houston for medical treatment with the aid of an organization called HEAL Palestine. 'Despite the US saying we are not accepting Palestinian 'refugees' into the United States under the Trump administration, these people from Gaza were able to travel to the US," she said.
She called it a 'national security threat' and asked who signed off on the visas, calling for the person to be fired. She tagged Rubio, President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, GOP Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat.
Trump has downplayed Loomer's influence on his administration, but several officials swiftly left or were removed shortly after she publicly criticized them.
The State Department on Sunday declined to comment on how many of the visas had been granted and whether the decision to halt visas to people from Gaza had anything to do with Loomer's posts.
HEAL Palestine said in a statement Sunday that it was 'distressed' by the State Department decision to stop halt visitor visas from Gaza. The group said it is 'an American humanitarian nonprofit organization delivering urgent aid and medical care to children in Palestine."
A post on the organization's Facebook page Thursday shows a photo of a boy from Gaza leaving Egypt and headed to St. Louis for treatment and said he is 'our 15th evacuated child arriving in the US in the last two weeks.'
The organization brings 'severely injured children" to the US on temporary visas for treatment they can't get at home, the statement said. Following treatment, the children and any family members who accompanied them return to the Middle East, the statement said.
'This is a medical treatment program, not a refugee resettlement program,' it said.
The World Health Organization has repeatedly called for more medical evacuations from Gaza, where Israel's over 22-month war against Hamas has heavily destroyed or damaged much of the territory's health system.
'More than 14,800 patients still need lifesaving medical care that is not available in Gaza,' WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday on social media, and called on more countries to offer support.
A WHO description of the medical evacuation process from Gaza published last year explained that the WHO submits lists of patients to Israeli authorities for security clearance. It noted that before the war in Gaza began, 50 to 100 patients were leaving Gaza daily for medical treatment, and it called for a higher rate of approvals from Israeli authorities.
The UN and partners say medicines and even basic health care supplies are low in Gaza after Israel cut off all aid to the territory of over 2 million people for more than 10 weeks earlier this year.
'Ceasefire! Peace is the best medicine,' Tedros added Wednesday.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Korea Herald
7 hours ago
- Korea Herald
US senators visit Seoul ahead of Lee-Trump summit
South Korea's Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back met Monday with US Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois, at the ministry headquarters in Yongsan-gu, central Seoul. She travels with Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey, who held a separate meeting with National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik in Yeouido, Seoul, earlier the same day. Their visit takes place ahead of President Lee Jae Myung's first summit with US President Donald Trump in Washington later this month, where the future of the alliance, US troop levels in Korea, defense cost-sharing and new areas of industrial cooperation are expected to be on the agenda. According to the Defense Ministry, Ahn and Duckworth reviewed the security situation on the Korean Peninsula and broader alliance development. Ahn stressed that US congressional backing was "essential for the advancement of the South Korea-US alliance" and called for "continued interest from Congress to reinforce combined defense readiness and strengthen the credibility of extended deterrence." Duckworth reaffirmed the US commitment to its forces stationed in Korea. "US Forces Korea remain a cornerstone of deterrence against North Korea and of peace and stability on the peninsula," she said, pledging active congressional support to sustain their role. She and Ahn also agreed to expand cooperation in shipbuilding, maintenance, repair and overhaul, and the defense industry. The US senators' trip comes as Washington looks to tap the shipbuilding capacity of South Korea and Japan, the world's second- and third-largest shipbuilders, to compensate for America's industrial decline. According to the US Center for Strategic and International Studies, US commercial shipbuilding accounted for just 0.1 percent of global output in 2024, compared with 53 percent for China. Duckworth, who also serves as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, previously warned in a recent interview with the Associated Press that US naval support capabilities have fallen below the levels of the 2003 Iraq War, saying "we have to rebuild the capacity" while current facilities are aging and increasingly costly to maintain. "If we have to bring ships all the way back to the United States to wait two years to be fixed, that doesn't help the situation," she said. South Korean shipbuilders are already engaging with the US Navy. Hanwha Ocean in March completed maintenance on the 41,000-ton USNS Wally Schirra, its first project under a 2024 repair agreement. Hanwha also owns Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia, while HD Hyundai Heavy Industries signed a maintenance support agreement with the US Navy in May and discussed possible investments in US yards. In recent trade talks, Seoul proposed investing $150 billion in the US shipbuilding industry as part of what it called the "Make American Shipbuilding Great Again" initiative, tying cooperation in shipyards to broader alliance discussions with Washington.
Korea Herald
10 hours ago
- Korea Herald
US may buy Intel stake, raising alarm for Samsung, TSMC
With reports emerging that Washington is weighing a stake purchase in Intel to shore up the struggling chipmaker, concerns are mounting that the move could pose challenges for rivals such as Samsung Electronics and TSMC. Analysts warn that the government support is an apparent push to steer US big tech firms toward Intel, a shift that could erode the market presence of overseas competitors. Industry sources said Monday that the US government is reviewing plans to acquire a stake in Intel following a recent White House meeting between US President Donald Trump and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan. According to Bloomberg, the Trump administration is weighing the use of funds from the CHIPS Act to buy into Intel, aiming to bolster the ailing firm seen as America's last hope for domestic chip manufacturing. It remains unclear whether this would involve converting some or all of Intel's existing CHIPS Act grants into equity, the outlet added. '(Trump) can go to these customers like Broadcom, Qualcomm, Apple and Nvidia and say now they (Intel) have the capability, and you need to move more of your orders and production to a domestic leading-edge company like Intel," Mizuho Securities USA Managing Director Jordan Klein said. Lee Jong-hwan, a system semiconductor engineering professor at Sangmyung University, echoed the view, saying, "it could increase Intel's chances of securing orders from US big tech companies, and if its foundry business gets back on track with government support, that is obviously bad for Samsung's foundry business." Washington's move to go beyond subsidies and directly purchase equity in Intel highlights the growing extent of government intervention in the global semiconductor race — complicating the outlook for rivals such as Korea's Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. NH Investment & Securities analyst Ryu Young-ho said in a report Monday that "blatant US support for domestic firms is negative for competitors like TSMC and Samsung Electronics." "No official announcement came (from Washington), but there are signs that the US government is intervening in companies critical to US industry," Ryu continued. For example, the US Defense Department recently funded American miner MP Materials in a bid to shore up rare earth production, where it sees strategic weakness. The Trump administration has also introduced a so-called "export tax," requiring US chipmakers like Nvidia and AMD to hand over 15 percent of revenue from sales to China. For Intel, the government's intervention could offer critical relief from its financial troubles. Since early 2022, the chipmaker's foundry business has been running at a loss every quarter, with total losses swelling to $19.6 billion as of the second quarter this year. To cope, Intel has been slashing costs and cutting jobs. With the equity injection, Intel is expected to accelerate construction of its planned semiconductor plant in Ohio. The project, which broke ground in 2022 with a 2025 completion goal, has been pushed back to 2030 amid funding shortfalls. Still, Intel must convince customers of its competitiveness, Klein said. In the global contract chipmaking market, Intel holds virtually no share, while TSMC dominates with 67.6 percent of revenue in the first quarter of this year, followed by Samsung at 7.7 percent. The Wall Street Journal also pointed out that it could weaken the overall competitiveness of the US semiconductor industry if the government pressures companies to use chips from Intel, which has lower yield and production capability when compared to TSMC.
Korea Herald
14 hours ago
- Korea Herald
Trump administration halts visas for people from Gaza after Loomer questions arrivals
WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after conservative activist Laura Loomer posted videos on social media of children from Gaza arriving in the US for medical treatment and questioning how they got visas, the State Department said it was halting all visitor visas for people from Gaza pending a review. The State Department said Saturday the visas would be stopped while it looks into how 'a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas' were issued in recent days. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday told 'Face the Nation' on CBS that the action came after 'outreach from multiple congressional offices asking questions about it." Rubio said there were 'just a small number' of the visas issued to children in need of medical aid but that they were accompanied by adults. The congressional offices reached out with evidence that 'some of the organizations bragging about and involved in acquiring these visas have strong links to terrorist groups like Hamas,' he asserted, without providing evidence or naming those organizations. As a result, he said, 'we are going to pause this program and reevaluate how those visas are being vetted and what relationship, if any, has there been by these organizations to the process of acquiring those visas.' Loomer on Friday posted videos on X of children from Gaza arriving earlier this month in San Francisco and Houston for medical treatment with the aid of an organization called HEAL Palestine. 'Despite the US saying we are not accepting Palestinian 'refugees' into the United States under the Trump administration, these people from Gaza were able to travel to the US," she said. She called it a 'national security threat' and asked who signed off on the visas, calling for the person to be fired. She tagged Rubio, President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, GOP Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat. Trump has downplayed Loomer's influence on his administration, but several officials swiftly left or were removed shortly after she publicly criticized them. The State Department on Sunday declined to comment on how many of the visas had been granted and whether the decision to halt visas to people from Gaza had anything to do with Loomer's posts. HEAL Palestine said in a statement Sunday that it was 'distressed' by the State Department decision to stop halt visitor visas from Gaza. The group said it is 'an American humanitarian nonprofit organization delivering urgent aid and medical care to children in Palestine." A post on the organization's Facebook page Thursday shows a photo of a boy from Gaza leaving Egypt and headed to St. Louis for treatment and said he is 'our 15th evacuated child arriving in the US in the last two weeks.' The organization brings 'severely injured children" to the US on temporary visas for treatment they can't get at home, the statement said. Following treatment, the children and any family members who accompanied them return to the Middle East, the statement said. 'This is a medical treatment program, not a refugee resettlement program,' it said. The World Health Organization has repeatedly called for more medical evacuations from Gaza, where Israel's over 22-month war against Hamas has heavily destroyed or damaged much of the territory's health system. 'More than 14,800 patients still need lifesaving medical care that is not available in Gaza,' WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday on social media, and called on more countries to offer support. A WHO description of the medical evacuation process from Gaza published last year explained that the WHO submits lists of patients to Israeli authorities for security clearance. It noted that before the war in Gaza began, 50 to 100 patients were leaving Gaza daily for medical treatment, and it called for a higher rate of approvals from Israeli authorities. The UN and partners say medicines and even basic health care supplies are low in Gaza after Israel cut off all aid to the territory of over 2 million people for more than 10 weeks earlier this year. 'Ceasefire! Peace is the best medicine,' Tedros added Wednesday.
