State Dept Shuts Down Temporary Visas for Injured Gaza Kids After Tirade From Racist Influencer Laura Loomer

The US State Department announced Saturday that it would halt the issuing of visas to children from Gaza in urgent need of medical care.

The decision came after a frenzied campaign by the racist online provocateur and close Trump confidante Laura Loomer, who raged over the weekend about the arrival of badly injured Palestinian children in Houston and San Francisco earlier this month.

The arrival of these children had been arranged by the US nonprofit group HEAL Palestine, which has helped at least 63 children "receive lifesaving surgeries, prosthetics, and rehabilitative care in the US."

In what she claimed was an "exclusive" report, Loomer—who has described herself as a "Proud Islamophobe," and as "pro-white nationalism"—shared a video posted by HEAL Palestine of children on crutches and wheelchairs arriving with their families at a US airport.

She falsely claimed that the children's shouts of joy were "jihadi chants" and that they were "doing the HAMAS terror whistle" and referred to the children as "Islamic invaders from an Islamic terror hot zone."

Loomer tagged Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the State Department in another post: "How did Palestinians get Visas under the Trump administration to get into the United States? Did @StateDept approve this? How did they get out of Gaza? Is @SecRubio aware of this?"

The day after Loomer's tirade began, the State Department announced that "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."

HEAL Palestine issued a statement Sunday saying it was "distressed" by the State Department's decision. Contrary to claims by Loomer that the children would become "like leeches on welfare," HEAL clarified that the children in the country were here "on temporary visas for essential medical treatment not available at home."

"After their treatment is complete," the organization said, "the children and any accompanying family members return to the Middle East."

Rhana Natour, the director and producer of All That Remains—a documentary for Al Jazeera's Fault Lines on a 13-year-old Palestinian girl who traveled to the US to receive treatment after losing her leg in an Israeli airstrike—told Drop Site News that the humanitarian visas canceled by the State Department are granted "exclusively to burned and disabled children and their parents."

(Video: Al Jazeera English)

Loomer took credit for the department's cancellation of the visas, thanking Rubio and calling it "fantastic news."

"Hopefully, all GAZANS will be added to President Trump's travel ban," Loomer wrote. "There are doctors in other countries. The US is not the world's hospital!"

In response, the X account for Drop Site, which has frequently highlighted the work of HEAL Palestine, responded to Loomer, saying that "Your taxes aren't funding the care for these Palestinian children," and that their treatment was being funded entirely through private support from donors.

"The only role of US tax dollars in the picture," Drop Site said, "is the costly review the State Department will now be forced to conduct because of a deranged racist's ravings to block children from lifesaving treatment."

Loomer later suggested that the wounded Palestinian children were being treated "for free," at the expense of US taxpayers, while "US Veterans are homeless on the street, unable to get healthcare."

Journalist Ryan Grim, Drop Site's co-founder, responded: "Trump slashed Medicaid, slashed the [Department of Veterans Affairs], slashed [Affordable Care Act] exchange subsidies, and increased the military budget to over a trillion dollars but Loomer wants people to think that the reason they don't have healthcare is that a Palestinian child got treated thanks to donations from people heartbroken at what Israel is doing to children."

"The trillion dollars being spent to blow the arms and legs off of children is the problem," Grim continued. "Not the children themselves."

In July, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported that since October 2023, at least 17,000 children have been killed and 33,000 injured across Gaza, many of them attacked by Israeli forces "as they [lined] up for lifesaving humanitarian aid."

The UN reported Friday that "10 children were losing one or both legs every day," making Gaza "home to the largest group of child amputees in modern history."

Despite having no formal position, Loomer is one of the most influential figures in the Trump administration—reportedly having spearheaded the hiring and firing of aides for key roles, including in the National Security Council.

Loomer has said that the US is a "Judeo-Christian ethnostate" being "destroyed" by immigration, and—following the opening of Trump's immigrant detention camp "Alligator Alcatraz"—joked that the "alligators are guaranteed at least 65 million meals," a number referring to the total population of Latinos in the United States.

Following news of the State Department's decision to cancel visas for injured Palestinians, Grim wrote that it "looks like [Loomer] is also setting visa policy."

"So we want to arm Israel to the teeth, allow them to block food and medical aid from getting into Gaza, and also condemn those facing medical emergencies to death," he said. "This goes far beyond 'wrong side of history.'"