Trump ultra-loyalist and far-right activist Laura Loomer is claiming credit for a snap State Department decision to freeze visitor visas for Gazans.
On Friday, Loomer reposted a video from HEAL Palestine showing injured Gazan children being brought to the United States for medical care.
“I have obtained video footage of Palestinians who claim to be refugees from Gaza coming into the United States via San Francisco and Houston, Texas this month,” Loomer posted on X, calling it a “national security threat.”
“Why are any Islamic invaders coming into the US under the Trump admin?” Loomer wrote. “Who signed off on these visas? They should be fired.”
The State Department announced it was halting “all visitor visas for individuals from Gaza” on X Saturday, saying it is conducting a “full and thorough review” of the process for granting them.
Loomer claimed credit for the State Department’s decision.
“Today, I saved so many American citizens from being killed by pro-HAMAS jihadis,” Loomer wrote. “God only knows how many lives I personally saved today by blowing the whistle on rogue actors at State Department giving visas to Gazan families.”
“It’s amazing how fast we can get results from the Trump administration,” she added.
New York Times journalist Hamed Aleaziz reported that Loomer claims she spoke directly with Secretary of State Marco Rubio about what she described as the threat of Islamic invasion via the humanitarian visa program.
British-American journalist Mehdi Hasan wrote on X in response to the report that, if both Trump and Rubio are taking advice from Loomer, “We are f---ed as a country.”
Speaking on Sunday’s Face the Nation, Rubio claimed “numerous” congressional offices had shown evidence that groups “bragging about” acquiring the visas to the U.S. have “strong links to terrorist groups like Hamas.”
“We are not going to be in partnership with groups that are friendly with Hamas,” Rubio said. “There was just a small number of them issued to children, but they come with adults accompanying them obviously. And we are going to pause this program and re-evaluate how those visas are being vetted and and what relationship, if any, has there been by these organizations to the to the process of acquiring those visas. We’re not going to be in partnership with groups that have links or sympathies towards Hamas.”
While she is not a government employee, Loomer’s lobbying has influenced a number of the Trump administration’s key policy and personnel decisions. She has been credited with the ouster of at least 16 staffers, including six aides on Trump’s National Security Council, including National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Deputy National Security Adviser Alex Wong.
President Donald Trump has previously described her as “a fantastic woman, a true patriot.”
HEAL Palestine—which claims to have brought 62 children from Gaza to the United States for medical care—describes itself as a “non-political, non-profit organization” founded in January 2024 in response to the “unimaginable devastation in Gaza.”
According to Loomer, their work is not charitable but serves as a covert means to “facilitate chain migration.”
“There are people who want to invade our country and bring HAMAS supporters to our country under the guise of ‘humanitarianism,’” Loomer wrote.
More than 61,000 Palestinians have been killed since the violence in the territory broke out in October 2023.
