WASHINGTON: The White House will offer deportation relief and work permits to an estimated 11,500 Lebanese nationals already in the US, due to conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, US President Joe Biden said in a memo on Friday.
The measure, under an authority known as Deferred Enforced Departure, will allow Lebanese nationals to remain in the US for 18 months and could be renewed.
The announcement comes after Vice President Kamala Harris pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday to help reach a Gaza ceasefire deal that would ease the suffering of Palestinian civilians, striking a tougher tone than Biden. Harris has emerged as the likely Democratic presidential nominee after Biden ended his campaign on Sunday.
Israel and Hezbollah have been trading fire since Hezbollah announced a “support front” with Palestinians shortly after its ally Hamas attacked southern Israeli border communities on Oct. 7, triggering Israel’s military assault in Gaza.
Hezbollah is an Iran-backed militant group and the most powerful military and political force in Lebanon.
US Representative Debbie Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan, which is home to Lebanese Americans in Detroit and elsewhere, applauded the move and estimated it would cover 11,500 people.
“Michigan is home to many Lebanese Americans who continue to watch their families suffer as Lebanon faces an unprecedented economic, political, and financial disaster,” she said in a statement.
Former President Donald Trump, a Republican seeking another term in the White House, has pledged mass deportations if reelected. His campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The fighting in Lebanon has killed more than 100 civilians and more than 300 Hezbollah fighters, according to a Reuters tally.
On the Israeli side, 10 Israeli civilians, a foreign agricultural worker and 20 Israeli soldiers have been killed.
Tens of thousands have been evacuated from both sides of the border.
White House grants deportation reprieve to Lebanese, citing Israel-Hezbollah tensions
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White House grants deportation reprieve to Lebanese, citing Israel-Hezbollah tensions
- The measure, under an authority known as Deferred Enforced Departure, will allow Lebanese nationals to remain in the US for 18 months
- “Michigan is home to many Lebanese Americans who continue to watch their families suffer,” said US Representative Debbie Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan
Trial opens in Tunisia of NGO workers accused of aiding migrants
- Aid workers accused of assisting irregular migration to Tunisia went on trial on Monday, as Amnesty International criticized what it called “the relentless criminalization of civil society”
TUNIS: Aid workers accused of assisting irregular migration to Tunisia went on trial on Monday, as Amnesty International criticized what it called “the relentless criminalization of civil society” in the country.
Six staff members of the Tunisian branch of the France Terre d’Asile aid group, along with 17 municipal workers from the eastern city of Sousse, face charges of sheltering migrants and facilitating their “illegal entry and residence.”
If convicted, they face up to 10 years in prison.
Migration is a sensitive issue in Tunisia, a key transit point for tens of thousands of people seeking to reach Europe each year.
A former head of Terre d’Asile Tunisie, Sherifa Riahi, is among the accused and has been detained for more than 19 months, according to her lawyer Abdellah Ben Meftah.
He told AFP that the accused had carried out their work as part of a project approved by the state and in “direct coordination” with the government.
Amnesty denounced what it described as a “bogus criminal trial” and called on Tunisian authorities to drop the charges.
“They are being prosecuted simply for their legitimate work providing vital assistance and protection to refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in precarious situations,” Sara Hashash, Amnesty’s deputy MENA chief, said in the statement.
The defendants were arrested in May 2024 along with about a dozen humanitarian workers, including anti-racism pioneer Saadia Mosbah, whose trial is set to start later this month.
In February 2023, President Kais Saied said “hordes of illegal migrants,” many from sub-Saharan Africa, posed a demographic threat to the Arab-majority country.
His speech triggered a series of racially motivated attacks as thousands of sub-Saharan African migrants in Tunisia were pushed out of their homes and jobs.
Thousands were repatriated or attempted to cross the Mediterranean, while others were expelled to the desert borders with Algeria and Libya, where at least a hundred died that summer.
This came as the European Union boosted efforts to curb arrivals on its southern shores, including a 255-million-euro ($290-million) deal with Tunis.
