Donald Trump All Set to Ban Potential Refugees From Gaza and Expand His Travel Ban if Re-Elected

Former President Donald Trump says he will ban Palestinian refugees from Gaza. Trump has been advocating for preventing prospective Gaza refugees from entering the United States and has pledged to “expand” the travel ban that President Joe Biden's administration had lifted in 2021 if he's re-elected, NBC News reported. “We aren’t bringing in anyone from Gaza, Syria, Somalia, Yemen or Libya or anywhere else that threatens our security,” Trump promised at a campaign event on October 16.

“I banned refugees from Syria, I banned refugees from Somalia — very dangerous places — and from all of the most dangerous places all over the world, I banned them,” Trump said. “In my second term, we’re going to expand each and every one of those bans,” he vowed. 

In a widely derided move, dubbed racist and Islamophobic by many, Trump first suggested “a total and complete shutdown” of Muslim immigration to the United States in 2015. His government attempted to implement a broad executive order as soon as he took office, but it was ultimately restricted to five nations with a majority of Muslims: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.

Entry into the United States is already prohibited for members of communist and totalitarian groups, both current and former, as well as those who support them, per the Associated Press. However, Trump declared to roughly 1,500 supporters in a Des Moines suburb that the United States will no longer permit “dangerous lunatics, haters, bigots, and maniacs to get residency in our country” should he be elected to a second term. 

Although he has been advocating for a stricter travel ban throughout his campaign, this was the first time he has brought up Gaza. “If you empathize with radical Islamic terrorists and extremists, you’re disqualified,” he said at the event. “If you want to abolish the state of Israel, you’re disqualified. If you support Hamas or any ideology that’s having to do with that or any of the other really sick thoughts that go through people’s minds — very dangerous thoughts — you’re disqualified.”

The former president and front-runner for the Republican nomination further declared that he would send immigration officials to “pro-jihadist demonstrations” to discover violators and that he would forcefully remove resident immigrants with “jihadist sympathies.” He then continued his tirade of Muslim communities, “In the wake of the attacks on Israel, Americans have been disgusted to see the open support for terrorists among the legions of foreign nationals on college campuses. They’re teaching your children hate.”

Other GOP candidates have also taken this line, with DeSantis claiming that Gaza residents “teach the kids to hate Jews. This is embedded in the culture.” However, Nikki Haley took a separate line, claiming that many Gaza residents “want to be free from this terrorist rule.” She said, “They want to be free from all of that. And America’s always been sympathetic to the fact that you can separate civilians from terrorists.”