Internal government documents show several agencies discussing plans to settle Palestinians in the U.S. whose relatives are American citizens or permanent residents.
The Biden White House is weighing whether to import some Palestinians from devastated areas of Gaza into the United States as refugees, according to reports.
CBS News obtained internal government documents reveal several agencies discussing plans to settle Gazans in the U.S. whose relatives are American citizens or permanent residents.
The Biden administration is considering bringing certain Palestinians to the U.S. as refugees, a move that would offer a permanent safe haven to some of those fleeing war-torn Gaza, according to internal federal government documents obtained by CBS News. https://t.co/JKlEq2uxrx
— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 30, 2024
From CBS News:
One of those proposals involves using the decades-old United States Refugee Admissions Program to welcome Palestinians with U.S. ties who have managed to escape Gaza and enter neighboring Egypt, according to the inter-agency planning documents.
Top U.S. officials have also discussed getting additional Palestinians out of Gaza and processing them as refugees if they have American relatives, the documents show. The plans would require coordination with Egypt, which has so far refused to welcome large numbers of people from Gaza.
Those who pass a series of eligibility, medical and security screenings would qualify to fly to the U.S. with refugee status, which offers beneficiaries permanent residency, resettlement benefits like housing assistance and a path to American citizenship.
The approximate number of Palestinians who would qualify for this resettlement initiative remains unknown but “is expected to be relatively small.”
The proposal to resettle Palestinian refugees in the U.S. is a departure from “longstanding U.S. government policy and practice,” the outlet reported.
“Since its inception in 1980, the U.S. refugee program has not resettled Palestinians in large numbers.”
Over the last 10 years, the U.S. has resettled over “400,000 refugees fleeing violence and war across the globe,” and of those, fewer than 600 were Palestinians — about 0.15%.
The proposal comes as a recent CNN poll shows a whopping 81% of voters under age 35 disapprove of Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict, which is also reflected by the mass pro-Palestinian protests at university campuses across the country.
Although this development appears favorable to the Palestinians at face value, the plan seems to align with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demands for the West to “absorb” Palestinian refugees as Israel systematically destroys Gaza in its extermination campaign against Hamas.
“Our problem is countries that are ready to absorb them and we are working on it,” Netanyahu said in December 2023.
“The world is already discussing the possibilities of voluntary immigration,” he said, adding that a team must be established to “ensure that those who want to leave Gaza to a third country can do so.”
“It needs to be settled. It has strategic importance for the day after the war,” he added.