Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the Trump administration’s decision to temporarily pause approvals of visitor visas for the people of Gaza following an intense lobbying campaign from Laura Loomer.
The State Department announced on Saturday its decision to suspend the visas for Gazans seeking medical care in the U.S., including young children who arrived in recent weeks with severe conditions, as the region grapples with a crippled healthcare system and severe food shortages.
Pressed on the move Sunday during an interview on CBS News’s Face the Nation, Rubio argued that some organizations attempting to acquire the visas have “strong links” to designated terrorist groups such as Hamas.
“There is evidence that has been presented to us by numerous Congressional offices that some of the organizations bragging about and involved in acquiring these visas have strong links to terrorist groups like Hamas,” he said. “We’re not going to be in partnership with groups who have links or sympathies towards Hamas.”
Rubio said that “numerous congressional offices” had presented “evidence” to the Trump administration and that the department had received “outreach from multiple congressional offices asking questions about it.” He did not provide details on the evidence or the offices that presented it to the government.
“And so we’re going to reevaluate how those visas are being granted. Not just for the children, but how those visas are being granted to the people who are accompanying them,” he added.
Loomer had taken credit for the visas being halted following a series of claims on X that families arriving from Gaza “threaten” U.S. national security.
The Trump ally praised the State Department’s visa pause announcement on Saturday as “fantastic news” and personally thanked Rubio for his “prompt response to this invasion of our country by NGOS that have been accused of being pro-HAMAS.”
In the early hours of Monday morning, Loomer turned her attention to the State Department and called for those who facilitated the visas to lose their jobs. She added that a temporary pause on the visas “isn’t good enough,” calling for them to be “ended forever.”
The State Department’s decision has drawn ire from some Palestinian rights groups.
Palestine Children’s Relief Fund said in a statement that the move “will have a devastating and irreversible impact on our ability to bring injured and critically ill children from Gaza to the United States for lifesaving medical treatment.”
Loomer began posting videos on Friday, allegedly showing people from Gaza arriving at airports across the U.S., including Seattle, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Houston, in recent weeks.
The videos were initially posted to Instagram by HEAL Palestine, a nonprofit dedicated to delivering urgent and long-term support to Palestinian children and families, showing children coming to the U.S. for medical treatment.
One of the videos shows a severely malnourished 14-year-old girl, weighing just 44lbs, who arrived in San Francisco this month after being burnt and sustaining shrapnel wounds when her shelter was bombed.
On Friday, Loomer set her sights on the State Department and asked who is assisting Heal Palestine.
“Why are any Islamic invaders coming into the U.S. under the Trump admin?” she said.
The post picked up traction with some Republican members of Congress, including Texas Representative Chip Roy and Florida Representative Randy Fine.
After the State Department’s announcement, Fine wrote on X that “massive credit needs to be given” to Loomer for “uncovering this.”
