FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, led Republican senators in demanding President Biden cease any plans for potential U.S. acceptance of Palestinian refugees from Gaza.
“We demand that your administration cease planning for accepting Gazan refugees until you adequately answer our concerns and focus your attention instead on securing the release of U.S. hostages held by Hamas,” Ernst wrote in a letter to Biden Wednesday night.
The letter was signed by 34 Republican senators, together with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Minority Whip John Thune of South Dakota, Republican convention Chairman John Barrasso of Wyoming and National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chairman Steve Daines of Montana.
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![Sen. Joni Ernst, Joe Biden](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/05/1200/675/ernst-letter-biden-gaza-refugees.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, led 33 different Republicans in a letter demanding President Biden stop plans for acceptance of Gaza refugees. (Getty Images)
The correspondence was prompted by a CBS News report that Biden’s administration is contemplating permitting some Palestinian refugees from Gaza into the U.S. as refugees.
According to the report, officers in a number of businesses within the Biden administration have been discussing over the course of weeks quite a few attainable plans to resettle some Palestinians in Gaza who’ve household which might be both residents of the U.S. or are everlasting residents within the nation.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for affirmation of the CBS report however didn’t obtain an instantaneous response.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre didn’t handle a reporter’s questions Wednesday concerning the variety of Palestinians the administration plans to relocate and whether or not the U.S. would assist to bodily transport them from Gaza.
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The press secretary detailed previous help the administration has offered to Americans who’ve been capable of evacuate Gaza with their households.
“We have also helped and will continue to help some particularly vulnerable individuals, such as children with serious health problems and children who were receiving treatment for cancer get out of harm’s way and receive care at nearby hospitals in the region,” she added.
![Mitch McConnell, John Barrasso, John Thune](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/05/1200/675/mcconnell-barrasso-thune.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Ernst’s letter was signed by 33 GOP senators, together with the occasion’s leaders — Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Minority Whip John Thune and convention Chairman John Barrasso. (Getty Images)
Fox News confirmed with a State Department official that if visas have been granted to Gaza refugees who’ve U.S. citizen family members, it would not be by means of any “new program” or quantity to a shift in coverage. The official additional confirmed such a transfer could be basically an extension of present coverage towards Palestinians within the area.
The Republican senators detailed that they “are not confident” within the Biden administration’s means to “adequately vet this high-risk population for terrorist ties and sympathies before admitting them into the United States.”
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This comes as anti-Israel protests have taken place at 47 of the nation’s prime 50 universities, as ranked in 2024 by U.S. News and World Report, within the final two weeks. At the identical time, a number of protests have featured antisemitic intimidation and vandalism, some evolving into riots.
In New York, roughly 300 individuals have been arrested between April 30 and May 1 at Columbia University, the place a constructing was taken over by demonstrators, and City College.
![Joe Biden, Tom Cotton](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/05/1200/675/biden-israel-columbia-cotton.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and different Republicans slammed President Biden for what they alleged was higher remedy for anti-Israel rioters than U.S. ally Israel. (Getty Images)
The lawmakers pointed to the “little access” that the U.S. and allies need to Gazans within the area, “making it nearly impossible to conduct thorough vetting before admitting them into our country.”
The significance of an intensive vetting course of is heightened, in keeping with the senators, “given the fact that the Gazans were the ones who voted Hamas into power in 2006.”
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Ernst and her GOP colleagues added that the matter of admitting terrorists into the nation is not a “hypothetical matter,” noting that in fiscal yr 2023 alone, 169 people on the FBI’s terror watch lists have been encountered on the U.S. southern border between ports of entry.
![Migrants storm the gate at the border in El Paso](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/03/1200/675/Border-breach-El-Paso-Texas_04.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Republicans cited people on the fear watch record who have been apprehended on the southern border final yr. (James Breeden for New York Post/Mega)
“Our first obligation should be to rescue our own citizens, not Gazans,” the senators mentioned, reiterating their request that Biden give attention to American hostages.
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They additional prompted Biden to reply what number of refugees he hopes to simply accept and the way his administration would “implement a screening mechanism” to ensure that “those with terrorist links or sympathies are not accepted as refugees into the United States.”
The State Department didn’t present fast remark to Fox News Digital concerning the report or the GOP senators’ demand.
Fox News’ Gillian Turner contributed to this report.