WASHINGTON: The US government said Saturday it is suspending visitor visas for Gazans after a far-right influencer with the ear of President Donald Trump complained that wounded Palestinians had been allowed to seek medical treatment in the United States.
The announcement came one day after a series of furious social media posts by Laura Loomer, who is known for promoting racist conspiracy theories and claiming that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an inside job.
“All visitor visas for individuals from Gaza are being stopped while we conduct a full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to issue a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas in recent days,” the State Department, which is led by Marco Rubio, wrote on X.
In a series of posts on X Friday, Loomer called on the State Department to stop giving visas to Palestinians from Gaza who she said were “pro-HAMAS... affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and funded by Qatar,” without providing evidence.
Loomer’s target was the US-based charity HEAL Palestine, which said last week it had helped 11 critically wounded Gazan children — as well as their caregivers and siblings — arrive safely in the US for medical treatment.
It was “the largest single medical evacuation of injured children from Gaza to the US,” the charity said on its website.
“Truly unacceptable,” Loomer wrote in another X post. “Someone needs to be fired at @StateDept when @marcorubio figures out who approved the visas.”
“Qatar transported these GAZANS into the US via @qatarairways,” she said. Qatar is “literally flooding our country with jihadis,” she added.
Loomer said she had spoken to the staff of Republican Tom Cotton, who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, adding that they were “also looking into how these GAZANS got visas to come into the US.”
Republican Congressman Randy Fine explicitly commended Loomer after the visa change was announced, in a sign of her sway over some US policy.
“Massive credit needs to be given to @LauraLoomer for uncovering this and making me and other officials aware. Well done, Laura,” Fine wrote on X.
The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, a US-based charity, called on the Trump administration to “reverse this dangerous and inhumane decision.”
Over the last 30 years the charity has evacuated thousands of Palestinian children to the US for medical care, it said a statement.
“Medical evacuations are a lifeline for the children of Gaza who would otherwise face unimaginable suffering or death due to the collapse of medical infrastructure in Gaza.”
Though Loomer holds no official position, she wields significant power, and is reported to have successfully pushed for the dismissal of several senior US security officials she deemed disloyal to Trump.
In July, Loomer took aim at a job offer made to a highly qualified Biden-era official for a prestigious position at the West Point military academy. The Pentagon rescinded the offer one day later.
Trump also fired the head of the highly sensitive National Security Agency, Timothy Haugh, and his deputy Wendy Noble in April at the apparent urging of Loomer, after she met with the president at the White House.
“No other content creator or journalist has gotten as many Biden holdovers fired from the Trump admin!” Loomer posted on X Saturday.
US suspends visas for Gazans after far-right influencer posts
https://arab.news/jpvcd
US suspends visas for Gazans after far-right influencer posts
- The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, a US-based charity, called on the Trump administration to “reverse this dangerous and inhumane decision”
Canada’s top envoy to the US will resign before review of free trade agreement
- Hillman helped lead the trade negotiations during US President Donald Trump’s first term
TORONTO: Canada’s ambassador to the US for the last six years said Tuesday she’s resigning next year as the two major trading partners plan to review the free trade agreement.
Ambassador Kirsten Hillman said in a letter it is the right time to put in place someone who will oversee talks about the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that is up review in 2026.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Hillman “prepared the foundations for Canada in the upcoming review” of the agreement.
Carney noted she’s one of the longest-serving ambassadors to the United States in Canada’s history.
Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Hillman in 2017. She was the first woman appointed to the role.
Hillman helped lead the trade negotiations during US President Donald Trump’s first term and worked with US and Chinese officials to win the release of two Canadians detained in China.
Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for Canada-US trade, and Hillman had been leading trade talks with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
Trump ended trade talks with Carney in October after the Ontario provincial government ran an anti-tariff advertisement in the US, which upset the US president. That followed a spring of acrimony, since abated, over Trump’s insistence that Canada should become the 51st US state.
Asked this week when trade talks would resume, Trump said, “we’ll see.”
Canada is one of the most trade-dependent countries in the world, and more than 75 percent of Canada’s exports go to the US Most exports to the US are exempted by the USMCA trade agreement but that deal is up for review.
Carney aims to double non-US trade over the next decade.
About 60 percent of US crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85 percent of US electricity imports as well.
Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the US and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security.
