“If you apply for a visa to come into the United States and in the process of being looked at, it comes to light that you’re a supporter of Hamas, we wouldn’t let you in,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated.
By Rachel Avraham
On January 20, 2025, the day that President Donald Trump was inaugurated for a second time, his administration issued an executive order, titled “Protecting The United States From Foreign Terrorists And Other National Security And Public Safety Threats,” that stated: “It is the policy of the United States to protect its citizens from aliens who intend to commit terrorist attacks, threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology, or otherwise exploit the immigration laws for malevolent purposes,” and that “the United States must ensure that admitted aliens and aliens otherwise already present in the United States do not bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles, and do not advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to our national security.”
During his US Senate Confirmation hearing, Marco Rubio, who is now US Secretary of State under Trump, clarified that this includes foreigners who support Hamas: “If you apply for a visa to come into the United States and in the process of being looked at, it comes to light that you’re a supporter of Hamas, we wouldn’t let you in. If we knew you were a supporter of Hamas we would not give you a visa. So now that you got the visa and you’re inside the US and now we realize you’re a supporter of Hamas, we should remove your visa. If you cannot come in because you’re a supporter of Hamas, you should not be able to stay on a visa if you’re a supporter of Hamas. That’s how I view it and, and I think that’s just an issue of common sense, and, uh, and we intend to be very forceful about that.”
MEMRI, a prominent research institute based in Jerusalem, highlighted some of the foreign activists who have been involved in supporting Hamas on campus: “ Mafaz Al-Suwaidan, the daughter of Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood leader Tareq Al-Suwaidan, is a doctoral candidate and Prize Fellow in Philosophy of Religion at Harvard University’s Committee on the Study of Religion; she is involved in anti-Israel activity on campus, including posting a photo of the statue of John Harvard on campus in a kaffiyeh and Palestinian flag and writing “Harvard has never looked better.””
According to MEMRI, her father is “an open promoter of jihad, who has praised the October 7 attack and called on supporters to “let the mujahideen do their work,” and who also urges Muslims to plan to “wipe out Israel.”” Her father, who has been banned from entering the US due to his support for terrorism and anti-Semitism, “in 2024 discussed the hadiths according to which Islam’s Prophet Muhammad assured Muslims that they would fight the Jews in the end times, when the Jews will hide behind the rocks and trees, and that the Muslims will conquer Istanbul and Rome. He also praised how the “action” on Western university campuses, such as the Sorbonne and Harvard, was led by young Muslims including his daughter who “mobilized” the Western students, and underlined how the October 7 attack, which he said had awakened the Islamic nation, was “a one-day victory followed by pain, destruction, and genocide, but it will change history.””
MEMRI also noted that Taher Herzallah, an activist who was raised but not born in California yet is an official who works for American Muslims for Palestine, in a December 2023 lecture on pro-Palestinian student activism, explained in detail the top priority of Muslim organizations after the October 7 attack: “The Zionists are really going to regret the day that they made the Muslims their enemy… when we talk about student activism, this is the moment, this is the time to agitate, to make Zionists feel very uncomfortable on campus.”
Saying “We are clear about our objectives. Free Palestine, from the River to the Sea. Don’t let anybody make you feel uncomfortable about saying that, because we don’t follow their moral authority,” he added: “We are Muslims. We believe in Allah. We will enforce… we will bring the rules that Allah gave us to this earth, because that’s what we were sent for.”
In 2016, NGO Monitor posted an undated Facebook post attributed to Herzallah where he wrote: “in order for them [Israeli society] to feel any compulsion or urge to end the occupation, they need to feel that they are in an abnormal situation. In that regard, Hamas’ rockets are effective even though they don’t kill anyone…Hamas’ rockets are an oppressed people’s audible cry for help.” According to the Canary Mission, in 2015, Herzallah stated: “we cannot envisage a future, a beautiful bright future for the Palestinian people, as long as Zionism exists…the only language that the State of Israel understands is that of resistance.” Herzallah is one of the ‘Irvine 11,’ a group of students who were arrested and prosecuted for interrupting Ambassador Michael Oren’s speech at UC Irvine in 2010.
According to the Canary Mission, “On February 16, 2017, Herzallah joined AMP official Kareem El-Hosseiny, along with three INN activists and a CODEPINK activist to disrupt a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on David Friedman’s nomination to be the United States Ambassador to Israel.
Herzallah and El-Hosseiny were arrested and charged with unlawful conduct and disrupting the U.S. Congress.”
MEMRI had the following to state about Herzallah’s organization American Muslims for Palestine, which has done much to support anti-Israel protests on campuses across America: “In October 2023, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares had announced that his office “has reason to believe” that AMP had “knowingly used or permitted the use of funds raised by a solicitation of contributions to provide support to terrorists, terrorist organizations, terrorist activities, or family members of terrorists.” Months later, in June 2024, AMP was still refusing to turn over documents and communications in its possession related to the funding of pro-Hamas propaganda and illegal encampments across the U.S., after being asked to do so numerous times.”
MEMRI noted that another group that supports violence is “New York University’s Palestine Solidarity Committee, renamed the People’s Solidarity Coalition, aka the People’s Front, and comprising 44 NYU-affiliated organizations,” who “announced a new mission in a “Statement of Intention” that hinted that it was prepared to use violence in its fight to “dismantle” the university’s “involvement in settler-colonial occupation, genocide and imperial wars” and that its members “recognize and welcome the diversity of tactics that lead to victory.” Among these are “armed struggle, non-violent direct action, cultural production, and world building.””
MEMRI noted that Columbia University keeps Jordanian academic Joseph Massad on staff, even though he “called the October 7 massacre a “stunning victory” and Hamas’s actions “astounding,” “awesome,” and “incredible.”” They noted that in January 2024, the very same university hired “North African-Egyptian Islamist anarchist Mohamed Abdou as Arcapita Visiting Professor in Modern Arab Studies – despite his repeated expressions of support for Hamas, Hizbullah, and Islamic Jihad beginning just after October 7, 2023.”
If Trump starts to go after foreign nationals who support terrorism by revoking their visas, this is not without precedent, as the Europeans have already been doing this. According to MEMRI, “The first student to be have her visa revoked, in December 2023, was Dana Abuqamar, a Palestinian student at Manchester University who was filmed the day after the October 7 attack saying that she was “really full of joy” and “proud that Palestinian resistance has come to this point.” A few months later in Greece in May 2024, nine international students from the UK and EU were among 28 students arrested during a protest and encampment at Athens Law School and deported, after being designated “unwanted aliens” and a threat to public order and national security. The evidence against them included leaflets, Palestinian flags, two smoke flares, gas masks, helmets, paint cans, and banner poles, along with a statement uploaded on a website in Greek and English urging others to join the protest.”
MEMRI also added: “As early as May 2024, colleges across California were suspending some student protestors, with consequences including evictions from housing, barring from final exams, and navigating disciplinary actions similar to those for accusations of bringing a gun to campus or raping a classmate in their dorm.” Now, it appears as though Trump is making good on his campaign promise and will push forward a nationwide policy, where those who support Hamas will get deported, which includes both professors and students who have been part of the Student Intifada that has plagued campuses across North America.
