DeSantis vows to revoke visas of Hamas-supporting international students if elected President
'Before the blood was even dry on the Israelis who were massacred, you saw people in our own country on college campuses going out and protesting and cheering on Hamas terrorists,' DeSantis said.
DeSantis vowed to 'cancel [Hamas-supporting international students'] visas and send them home.'
Florida Governor and Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has stated that, if elected, he will revoke the visas of international students who show support for Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
“Before the blood was even dry on the Israelis who were massacred, you saw people in our own country on college campuses going out and protesting and cheering on Hamas terrorists,” DeSantis said in an event in Iowa on Thursday. “Any foreign student on a visa who’s out there praising Hamas, when I’m president, I will cancel their visa, and I will send them back to their home country.”
DeSantis doubled down on his stance on his X page on Saturday. “When I’m President, if foreign students are out there celebrating terrorism, I will cancel their visas and send them home,” he captioned a video.
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“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,” he said in the video. “It’s not just Mexico and Central America. It’s Russia, China, the Middle East, all that stuff.”
“But I think what we also saw, when the blood wasn’t even dry on the Israelis that had been massacred, you had people in America going out protesting in favor of Hamas,” he continued. “And that’s, like, very chilling.”
“Some of these people are not US 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.”
[RELATED: Coalition of Jewish orgs calls for defunding of SJP following pro-Hamas demonstrations]
After Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, several college students and faculty members made their favorable views toward Hamas known. Campus Reform has reported on several of these incidents.
Several school chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) have held rallies in favor of Hamas, chanting phrases such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “Israel, Israel, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.”
In one case, police and protesters at the University of Florida tried to prevent a student from filming these rallies, as Campus Reform reported on Oct. 13. “I’m scared that speaking about it will be putting an even bigger target on my back than there already is,” said one University of Florida student of the incident.
“[A]nytime a journalist or attendee raised a phone or camera, the organizers stopped the event, rushed over to the attendee and covered the camera with their hands,” the student said.
