From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By JASON HOPKINS

Immigration experts are warning that a reported Biden administration plan to import Palestinians as refugees would pose a unique threat to the United States.

Internal federal government documents leaked to the media on Tuesday indicated that the Biden White House is considering options on how to provide permanent safe haven to Palestinians living in war-torn Gaza. While no official plan has been announced or implemented, many in the government and immigration field have sounded the alarm on the potential consequences of such a move.

Experts who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation framed the reported plan as contrary to the country’s interests, warned of the risks of importing poorly-vetted foreign nationals with potential terror ties and encouraged the Biden administration to instead relocate these refugees to a nearby region within the Middle East.

“This is an absurd plan that places woke ideology above the public safety and national security concerns of American citizens,” Matt O’Brien, director of investigations for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, told  the DCNF.

O’Brien noted that Hamas is no longer just a designated terrorist organization in the Gaza strip, but the official government of the enclave: “That means an inordinate number of Gazans are going to have direct ties to Hamas — because they voted it into power — and it will be impossible to vet them because we can’t trust records compiled by their chosen government,” he said.

“The smarter thing to do would be to arrange for a third country in the Middle East to provide temporary refuge to any Gazan’s who are allegedly in need of protection,” he continued. “But allowing Gazans into the U.S. in large numbers will only set America up for a large-scale national security disaster.”

Congressional leaders have also noted the ideological extremism in the Gazan population, and what that could mean for everyday Americans if they are welcomed here en masse.

Iowa GOP Sen. Joni Ernst led a delegation of 34 Republican senators earlier this week in demanding President Joe Biden stop his purported plan. In their letter to the president, the senators noted the incredibly high number of Gazans currently supporting Hamas and how, because of the numerous logistical hurdles that come with importing migrants from a war-torn region halfway around the world, it would be nearly impossible to conduct proper vetting of all of them.

“We are confused as to why the United States is willing to accept Gazan refugees when even nearby Arab countries supportive of the Palestinian cause refuse to take them in due to security concerns,” the senators wrote.

Their letter demanded answers on how many Gazans the administration wants to accept and how exactly applicants will be screened to ensure no one with terrorist sympathies is allowed into the U.S.

If polling in the region is accurate, the American government will have a difficult time weeding out those who have extremists ties.

A survey released by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Research in March found that 71% of Palestinians supported Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre on Israeli civilians. A mere 5% of the Palestinians surveyed said they believed the Oct. 7 attack to be a war crime.

Polls conducted in months past also indicated a rise in support for Hamas among the Gazan population after the Oct. 7 massacre.

“Every American should be deeply concerned about reports that the Biden administration is planning on implementing a program to bring Gazans into the United States,” Eric Ruark, director of research and public relations for NumbersUSA, stated to the DCNF.

Ruark echoed calls to relocate Gazans displaced by the fighting to a nearby region, in lieu of using the crisis as another way to bring more foreign nationals permanently into the U.S. He predicted that the administration would make a humanitarian argument in favor of relocating Gazans to the U.S., but added that the White House’s border policies made it clear that “humanitarianism is the least of its priorities.”

Egypt has long maintained security measures to keep Gazans from entering the Sinai, including a concrete wall topped with concertina wire and military personnel at the Rafah border.

It remains to be seen how exactly the Biden administration would go about bringing the Gazan refugees over. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.

One proposal involves implementing the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program to accept those with American ties and already have escaped into Egypt, according to government documents reviewed by CBS News. Top administration officials have also reportedly discussed processing Gazans as refugees if they have American relatives.

The Palestinians who pass a slate of security, medical and eligibility screenings would qualify for refugee status, which can then offer them permanent residency, resettlement benefits and a pathway to U.S. citizenship.

All the logistics that come with such strategies, however, would require coordination and cooperation with Egypt, a bordering Arab country that has so far remained vehemently opposed to accepting a large number of Gazans — a detail that isn’t lost on critics of the Biden administration’s plan.

“Egypt and other Arab countries are refusing to take in Palestinian refugees from Gaza,” RJ Hauman, president of the National Immigration Center for Enforcement (NICE), said in a statement to the DCNF. “Instead of recognizing why that is and acting in our national interest, Biden wants to ramp up the dangerous trend of bringing in unvetted and potentially dangerous individuals who hate us.”

Now that the annoying Toronto Maple Leafs business (In Toronto The Leafs Always Fall In Spring ) is in the rearview mirror it’s time to turn Canada’s yearning eyes to… the Vancouver Canucks? Okay, the Edmonton Oilers are in the second round, too, playing the Canucks. But it’s the unlikely re-appearance of the Nucks, like some Ogopogo on skates, that commands the curious attention of Canadians.

While Edmonton may even win the Cup this year— should its forward-heavy strategy work better than it did for the Maple Leafs— seeing the team in blue and green re-emerge after eight seasons out of eleven with no playoffs— no postseason since 2020— has some intriguing side stories. It’s been bleak since the owner blew up his team in 2013 for fear of losing a few season-ticket holders.

Vancouver is the only Canadian team to go to Game 7 twice in the Finals since Montreal won the Cup in 1993. In 1994 it was defeat at the hands of Mark Messier and the Rangers. In 2011 it was the bastard, er… Boston Bruins who skated away with the Cup in seven. And, as everyone at HNIC reminds us, Calgary (2004), Edmonton (2006), Ottawa (2007) and Montreal (2021) all fell in the Final, too. But that’s it. Seven spins of the Plinko in 31 years.

With NHL ensuring that only one of the two remaining Canadian clubs will advance after this round, the chances of a Canadian team making it eight Finals in 31 years are slim. So why not the team that plays at 10 PM ET all the time, the team that was predicted to be among the League’s worst this year. Your Vancouver Canucks. After all, it would be so perfect for the team from the home of loony politics to win the Cup.

Primary among them is the symmetry of the Hamas disturbances across the county today that recall the 2011 Canucks riot that followed the Game Seven loss by Alain Vigneault’s team. For those who don’t remember, the bitter loss fused overly refreshed Canucks fans with an element that had nothing to do with hockey on a warm summer night.

As the fans streamed away from the Rogers Centre and the open-air watch parties, the now-familiar masked balaclava-wearing, backpack toting radicals moved among them, whipping up the fans’ monumental disappointment with urges to vandalize and loot. Viewers saw an incongruous picture of these fifth columnists and fans in the team jersey becoming involved in the smashing of windows and setting of fires. Sure, Montreal had seen recent riots after Stanley Cups but there was little element of politics in the drunken behaviour.

Not Vancouver. Not in 2011. Seeing the random anarchists and looters on Granville and Robson Streets the question was, “Why were the cops and elected officials so unprepared?”

It was an unsettling conclusion to a season of so much good feeling in Vancouver, staining the memory of a gifted hockey team that simply ran out of healthy bodies. The most common reaction to the riots was “Who were those non-hockey people in the riot?” There were jokes about the instigators were 257 Daniel Sedins, 319 Henrik Sedins and 195 Roberto Luongos. But they fell flat.

Many were shocked to see so many anarchists, Marxists, radical climate freaks, petty criminals and psychopaths in their midst. Like the reaction to the Palestinian mobs waving Death To Jews and From The River to the Sea, the impact on average Canadians— the kind who watch hockey, not Mao, as a religion— was unsettling. The damages soared into the tens of millions as Vancouver’s looked at a burned-out downtown and asked, “What happened?”

Later investigations revealed a large contingent of the rioters came from as far away as the Pacific Northwest and California. This was an organized event. Again, how did so many people with evil intent get into the country? The answer to most of the questions was very Canadian. People thought it couldn’t happen here.

It’s what most are saying about the Hamas-inspired wave of crime and insubordination now on screens. Canadians have always been so liberal and self effacing. How did they end up branded by homicidal Hamas as supporting the murder of babies? Isn’t there supposed to be some pay-off for being kind and opening the doors to unchecked immigration from countries where terror and instability are the watchwords?

What is just as unnerving about the Palestinian intifada ugliness is the realization that, memories of 2011, the anti-Israel demonstrators represent  only a part of the mobs denying entry to Jewish students at schools or blocking traffic or defacing buildings with messages of hate. It’s clear that anti-capitalist nihilists are in equal numbers in the crowds, whipping up hapless coeds, grad-school nimrods and nutty professors with their messages.

Worse, the uniform tents, signs, chants and more across the continent are the products of donors linked to some of the most famous names in finance— Rockefeller, Gates, Soros.

Citizens are right to wonder how the toxic politics of the Middle East has fused with a bottomless pit of money to upend their capitalist society. And to realize that the liberal tenets of toleration and friendliness espoused by feckless politicians have only brought on this crisis.

And to think that most thought it all behind them after they’d cleaned up the broken glass and burned cars in 2011. As they say, do it once, shame on you. Do it twice, shame on me.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Now for pre-order, new from the team of Evan & Bruce Dowbiggin . Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL & Changed Hockey. From Espo to Boston in 1967 to Gretz in L.A. in 1988 to Patrick Roy leaving Montreal in 1995, the stories behind the story. Launching in paperback and Kindle on #Amazon this week. Destined to be a hockey best seller. https://www.amazon.ca/Deal-Trades-Stunned-Changed-Hockey-ebook/dp/B0D236NB35/