Joining former President Donald Trump and others on the right in arguing that those who are in America on visas and protesting in favor of Hamas need to be sent home rather than allowed to stay in America, where much of the citizenry disagrees with them on the important issue of which side to back in the Israel-Palestine dispute.
Discussing the issue, Florida Governor and 2024 Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said that, if elected president, he will go ahead and work to deport those foreign students here in the US on visas if they cheer on Hamas or back other foreign adversaries who are hostile to America. DeSantis made those remarks at an event hosted by U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks.
Beginning, he described the issue as a “national emergency,” saying, “Day one, it’s going to be a national emergency. And I think what this terrorist attack in Israel has shown us is we’re vulnerable from all the people that have come illegally because they have come from Iran too. It’s not just Mexico, Central America; Russia, China, Middle East, all that stuff.”
Continuing, he described it as “chilling” that those visa-holders will back those doing the massacring before the blood is cold on the ground, saying, “But I think what we also saw when the blood wasn’t even dry on the Israelis who had been massacred, you had people in America going out protesting in favor of Hamas. And that’s like, very chilling.”
And, getting to what he would do, he said, “Some of these people are not U.S. citizens, they’re [on] student visas. So as president, if you’re on a student visa, and you’re a foreigner, and you’re out there celebrating terrorism, I’m canceling your visa and I’m sending you home.”
Watch DeSantis here:
When I’m President, if foreign students are out there celebrating terrorism, I will cancel their visas and send them home. pic.twitter.com/BPcVls2w7e
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) October 21, 2023
Former President Trump, for his part, recently vowed to bring back his travel ban to keep out that same group, saying, “A vote for Crooked Joe is a vote to turn the United States into a hotbed of jihadists and make our cities into dumping grounds very much resembling the Gaza Strip. Have you been to the Gaza Strip?” He added, “A vote for President Trump is a vote to secure the border and it’s a vote to keep radical Islamic terrorists the hell out of our country.”
He added, “They want to come in, they want to bring the same people that are shooting rockets at Israel, they want to come into the United States. I don’t think a lot of good things are going to happen. And I will implement strong ideological screening of all immigrants.”
Trump also said, in the same series of remarks, “If you hate America, if you want to abolish Israel, if you don’t like our religion — which a lot of them don’t — if you sympathize with jihadists, then we don’t want you in our country and you are not getting in.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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