Reps. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) and Andy Ogles (R-TN) are urging President Joe Biden’s top officials to make an “unequivocal public commitment” that they will not resettle Palestinians in American towns and cities.
Following attacks on Israel by Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization that controls Gaza, Tiffany and Ogles introduced the “GAZA Act” to block Biden from importing Palestinians to the United States either via parole or refugee resettlement.
Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) has since introduced the bill in the Senate.
In a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Tiffany and Ogles say Biden’s officials must make their position on Palestinian refugee resettlement clear to Americans.
“Like many Americans, we are concerned about the possibility that the Biden administration may be mulling plans to bring large numbers of Palestinians into the United States. As you know, at least one Democratic House member has already called for the wide-scale resettlement of Palestinians in American communities,” they write:
When asked if administration officials were considering such a scheme, a White House spokesman refused to explicitly rule it out – saying only that there are “no plans” to do so “at this time.” [Emphasis added]
It is hardly a secret that the Biden administration has repeatedly exceeded its executive authority, allowing massive numbers of foreign nationals to enter our country outside the scope of existing immigration laws. One of the most flagrant examples of this abuse is the widespread use of so-called “categorical parole,” which the Biden administration has used to release as many as one million aliens without visas into the United States — including thousands from Afghanistan alone. [Emphasis added]
These efforts by the White House to set up and operate what can only be described as a parallel, extra-legal immigration system have raised alarm across the country and yielded grim results. The chaotic resettlement of more than 76,000 Afghans in the wake of the fall of Kabul, for example, resulted in countless Afghans who played no role whatsoever in assisting American forces during the war winding up in the United States. In other cases, we saw Afghans with past criminal convictions — including individuals who had been previously deported — making their way on to evacuation flights, and the resettlement of others who went on to commit appalling crimes ranging from assault to sexual abuse of minors. [Emphasis added]
While deeply troubling, this is hardly surprising given that one Customs and Border Protection official characterized the White House priority at that time as “get[ting] as many people on the plane as you can, and we’ll sort out the (immigration visa) stuff later.” [Emphasis added]
Mr. Secretary, the American people do not want to see this dangerous situation repeated with Palestinians. Moreover, they deserve more than a vague assurance from a White House spokesman that the Biden administration hasn’t yet identified a legally dubious mechanism to flood American neighborhoods with foreigners from a region that is a global hotspot for Islamic terrorism. [Emphasis added]
Along those lines, we would ask that the department make an unequivocal public commitment sooner rather than later not to use “categorical parole” or any other loophole to bring Palestinians into the United States. [Emphasis added]
As Tiffany and Ogles note, Biden’s officials have remained silent on the issue, telling Fox News in a vague statement that “all refugees undergo robust screening and vetting prior to being admitted to the United States” and that “at this time, there are no plans for new visa programs.”
Likewise, when Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) told the New York Post‘s Jon Levine that Americans must “be prepared to welcome refugees from Palestine,” House and Senate Democrats stayed quiet on the issue and did not come to his defense amid public backlash.
Already, the U.S. gives green cards to more than a million legal immigrants annually, as well as another more than a million visas to foreign nationals. This total includes tens of thousands of refugees who are resettled in American communities every year.
Over the last 20 years, nearly one million refugees have been resettled in the country. This is a number more than double that of residents living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is the equivalent of annually adding the population of Pensacola, Florida.
Refugee resettlement costs American taxpayers nearly $9 billion every five years, according to research, and each refugee costs taxpayers about $133,000 over the course of their lifetime. Within five years, an estimated 16 percent of all refugees admitted will need housing assistance paid for by taxpayers.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at
