A U.S. House of Representatives staff report released Thursday claims that the Biden administration failed to turn over information regarding foreign protesters who were potentially involved in promoting “terrorist activity” while residing in the U.S.
As violent anti-Israel protests gripped college campuses across the nation, prominent Republicans, including President-elect Donald Trump, have suggested revoking the visas of foreign residents participating in such events and demonstrating “anti-Americanism.” In response, the House released a report on antisemitism, citing the Immigration and Nationality Act, which states that a foreign resident in the U.S. is subject to deportation if the individual “endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization.”
The report notes that the Committee on the Judiciary directly asked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in April for “The number of aliens, including those on student visas, who have endorsed or espoused terrorist activity or have persuaded others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization during anti-Israel protests.” The Committee wrote that the DHS “refused to provide a substantive response.”
“In light of the despicable antisemitic protests that occurred nationwide on college campuses and elsewhere, on April 30, 2024, the Committee wrote to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, requesting various documents and information relating to each Department’s inaction in revoking visas for aliens who endorse or espouse terrorist activities, including aliens on student visas who endorse Hamas’s terrorist activities against Israel and violence against Jews,” the report stated.
The report also said that Mayorkas “Declined to state whether foreign students should ‘have their visas revoked’ if they ‘advocate for the elimination of Israel and attacks on Jewish individuals.’”
After initially receiving no response from the two departments, the Committee sent additional letters to Mayorkas and Blinken on May 17 before finally receiving a response from the State Department on May 29. The department claimed in its reply that they received no requests from DHS to revoke any visas for actions pertaining to campus protests.
In the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, protests swept the U.S. and resulted in hundreds of arrests, property damage and dozens of injuries. At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) administrators did nothing to stop demonstrators from establishing a “Jew Exclusion Zone” in which students were demanded to denounce Israel and voice their support for the Palestinian cause. Jewish students were barred by protesters from entering essential campus buildings, eventually leading several of them to sue the school.
Multiple reports detailing universities’ failed responses to campus protests have also been released in recent months.
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce stated in August that Columbia University — which witnessed some of the most extreme protests that escalated to violence and arrests — had punished only a fraction of students for their involvement despite violating a multitude of university policies, including seizing a campus building and holding an employee hostage. The committee revealed similar findings at Harvard University.
In September the committee accused Harvard of “willfully obstructing” an investigation into an assault on a Jewish student. Meanwhile, a November report revealed that administrators at Columbia and Northwestern University had sent private messages expressing support for protesters and promising them “amazing wins” in their negotiations with the schools.
Several university presidents, including Minouche Shafik from Columbia and Claudine Gay from Harvard, were called to testify in front of Congress over the rampant antisemitism on their campuses. Shafik and Gay both faced heated backlash over their testimonies during which they refused to state whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated university policy, prompting formal investigations into the schools and later causing both presidents to resign.
Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Trump’s Secretary of State nominee, was one of the first to advocate for the visa revocation of foreigners residing in the U.S. who supported Hamas, raising concerns about the security threats just one week after the terrorist group’s attack on Israel.
“What I am saying is common sense,” Rubio said at the time. “You’re a visitor. You are not even American. You’re a foreign national. You’re here because we gave you a visa to be here temporarily, and now you’re out there defending and supporting Hamas, a terrorist organization? You need to go.”
The DHS and State Department did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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