Trump administration halts visas for people from Gaza after Laura Loomer
questions arrivals
[August 18, 2025]
WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after conservative activist Laura
Loomer posted videos on social media of children from Gaza arriving in
the U.S. 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 U.S., 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."
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President Donald Trump walks to disembark Air Force One as he
arrives at Joint Base Andrews, Md., early Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025,
from a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage,
Alaska. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
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 U.S. in the
last two weeks.”
The organization brings “severely injured children" to the U.S. 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 U.N. 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.
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