The US state department announced on Saturday that it would stop issuing visas to children from Gaza in desperate need of medical care after an online pressure campaign from Laura Loomer, a far-right influencer close to Donald Trump who has described herself as “a proud Islamophobe”.

"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 said in a message posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, from which Loomer was banned before it was purchased by Elon Musk.

In a pair of posts on the social network on Friday, Loomer had shared video of badly injured Palestinian children and their family members arriving in Houston and San Francisco this month, along with false claims that their shouts of joy were “jihadi chants” and that they were “doing the HAMAS terror whistle”.

Loomer also falsely claimed that she had “exclusively obtained” the two video clips she shared. One was copied from a medical aid charity’s public Instagram account and the other was from the Houston Chronicle’s YouTube channel.

  • Lucelu2@lemmy.zip
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    17 hours ago

    This along with the elimination of USAID should disqualify the orange gorilla from any peace prize .

  • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.works
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    18 hours ago

    I love the far right argument that we shouldn’t be “handing out medical care to people in need in foreign countries.”

    Bc according to the far right we also shouldn’t be “handing out medical care to people in need in our own country.”

    And then it just kinda makes you wonder who tf is actually entitled to medical care according to the far right? And then you realize, oh you just answered your own question.

  • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Meanwhile, Trump and co. offered asylum to white Afrikaners who aren’t even asking for one, while brown Palestinians who are being massacred are refused.

    The mask is off.

  • sarcasticsunrise@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    We live in a country where someone in a position of power can brag about being a “proud Islamaphobe” and nothing will come of it. Crickets from any conservative denouncing this disgusting rhetoric, as is tradition

  • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    There was no pro-terrorism cheering, Loomer is just making stuff up. Palestinians ululating to welcome children’s arrival must have set the racist off.

    • Tja@programming.dev
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      1 day ago

      Well, Kamala said her policy wouldn’t be different from Biden, or something like that… this is definitely different all right. The protest worked!

    • fireman_sam_real@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Children are being starved and mutilated in Gaza and you’re using this to re-litigate the 2024 election?

      The Kamala campaign actively distanced themselves from any pro-Palestine activism. It was disgusting that they refused to even let Palestinian members of their own party speak at the DNC. Her campaign made a decision that they didn’t need Palestinians in their coalition, thinking they could win anyway. And even then, most pro-Palestine protesters held their nose and voted for her anyway. Even those who didn’t, the vast majority of them lived in deep-blue states so their votes didn’t do anything anyway.

      Yes I don’t think the democrats would have blocked visas for Palestinian children. But they probably would have continued giving weapons to Israel which would have killed and maimed those children.

      What you said isn’t a gotcha on progressives but a deep indictment of the American political system. You Americans should think long and hard about why your only 2 viable parties were facilitating genocide.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        18 hours ago

        pretends they’re against re-litigating the 2024 election.

        goes on to attempt to re-litigate the 2024 election themselves

      • brachiosaurus@mander.xyz
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        11 hours ago

        The people downvoting you are unaware. They know trump is shit because it’s all over the media but they haven’t spent 10 minutes to learn about what their government does. If the red and blue battle was between trump and putin nobody would bring up the lesser evil narrative, everyone would agree that they are both shit because they are fully aware of it.

      • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Lol sounds like you don’t like being reminded what protest-non-voters voted for. Don’t worry, I got another 3.5 years of reminding protest-non-voters what they voted for. Longer if you count how long it takes to fix everything.

        • fireman_sam_real@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          More than 77 million people in your country voted for a fascist but instead you’re complaining about the tiny minority of people who didn’t cast a vote in protest. I seriously doubt these people lost the election for Kamala.

          If the democrats wanted higher turnout they should have expanded their coalition. Instead they punched left and lost, just like you’re doing now.

          • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Who said I’m complaining? I am informing protest-non-voters what they voted for. Trump voters are under no delusion (most anyway) what they voted for. Protest-no-voters are under the delusion they didn’t vote for this, when in fact they did.

            Guess who “punched” nothing? And guess what they voted for? That’s right, they voted for this.

    • John Richard@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      No this is exactly what you voted for. The people protesting or voting for a third party was against it.

      • fluxion@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I see there are still plenty of folks with their head up their ass ignoring reality…

        No, Kamala would not have banned Gaza’s children from getting medical aid due to a Laura Loomer bs campaign. Emphatic no.

        So keep patting yourself on the back… at least i didn’t fuck these kids over.

        • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          70% of the buildings in Gaza were destroyed under Biden. The famine started under Biden. Harris said she would do nothing differently. Biden broke his promises to the Arab and Muslim communities, he ignored community leaders who warned him that his most reliable voting block would stay home, and Biden lied and said he heard them and would change course. He didn’t, despite losing all those votes in the primary.

          Voting for Biden would have rewarded the bad behavior and send a message to all future democrats that you can take those votes for granted and still win. Not voting ensures that you’ll be taken seriously in future elections down the line. It’s a prisoners dilemma problem.

          And yes, we all knew Harris is better than Trump. She threw away her own election rather than give a centimeter to help Palestinian voices. She wouldn’t admit Biden did anything wrong and that’s what cost her the millions of votes. She wouldn’t even let Palestinians endorse her at the DNC and tell everyone to vote for her. The fault is hers not any voters.

          • fluxion@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            2 things vs 3 bad that include these kids getting banned from the US is, by any measure of reality, WORSE FOR GAZA. Stop being dense and arguing distracting points.

            • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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              13 hours ago

              Worse for Gaza in the short term, unquestionably. But rolling over and letting both parties demolish Gaza is not helping either. Biden was fine with the genocide, as long as it was slow and out of public eye; in the end he did whatever Netanyahu wanted and refused to put actual pressure on him. Even when he was VP he undermined Obama’s attempts to pressure Israel. Judge him by his actions, not whatever intentions you’re guessing at. Biden publicly threw away pro Palestinian votes and said he could win re-election without them. We warned him he was wrong, and he was.

              • fluxion@lemmy.world
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                12 hours ago

                Hello, me from 2016 who voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary and didn’t vote for Clinton because of how unfairly the DNC treated him and progressives.

                That was my calculus as well: suffer for 4-8 years in hopes of a better candidate. We got Biden…

                But as you can see, this is no longer the ebb and flow of 2 legitimate parties vying for the people’s support, this is A FASCIST OVERTHROW OF THE UNITED STATES, BY AN INSURRECTIONIST WHO ALREADY TRIED TO DO IT BEFORE AND GAVE EVERY INDICATION HE WOULD DO IT AGAIN.

                This is not the environment, time, or place, ESPECIALLY if your main concern is the conflict happening on Gaza RIGHT NOW, with full US support for wiping Gaza off the map RIGHT NOW. For every parent of every child that was the time to pit your best viable option forward instead of trying to appease your fantasies of how the world should be.

      • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        You did it! Gaza is saved and this is fake news! Aid has been flooding into Gaza since Trump’s victory!

  • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Maybe they should go to Gaza and hang out. See how long they last before they come begging to get back into the U.S. where snipers aren’t regularly shooting people standing in food lines.

  • octopus_ink@slrpnk.net
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    1 day ago

    Once again I remind you - the only conservative policies that aren’t a smokescreen for their desire to oppress others are the policies that openly display their desire to oppress others.

  • Typhoon@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    I’m surprised Trump agreed to this. He can’t fuck children if they don’t survive.