Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said during multiple campaign events over the weekend that the United States should not allow any Palestinians from inside Gaza to seek refuge in the U.S.
The Republican presidential candidate made the remarks after Hamas, a Palestinian Islamic terrorist organization, murdered more than 1,300 Israelis last week and injured 3,000+ more in the deadliest day in Israel’s history.
“I don’t know what Biden’s gonna do, but we cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees,” DeSantis told supporters at a rally in Iowa on Saturday. “I am not going to do that. If you look at how they behave, not all of them are Hamas, but they are all anti-Semitic. None of them believe in Israel’s right to exist.”
DeSantis noted that “none of the Arab states are willing to take any of them” and that those countries are the ones that should ultimately be responsible for helping Palestinian Arabs.
“You don’t fly people and import them into the United States of America,” he said. “So we’re going to be very strong on that. And I think about our country, you see these demonstrations supporting Hamas in the United States of America. How did we get to the point where people are out there doing that — you get reports of babies being murdered, all this other stuff — and your first instinct is to go out and praise the terrorists who perpetrated that? You have students at Harvard signing letters, praising Hamas for doing it.”
“We’ve got some serious problems in this country,” he added. “We’ve allowed a lot of these problems to fester. But my view is very simple: If you don’t like this country, if you hate America, you should not come to this country. We’ve got to start being smart about this.”
WATCH:
We should not import people from Gaza to our country.
Neighboring Arab nations should open their borders and absorb them. pic.twitter.com/y11MGQfWoK
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) October 14, 2023
In remarks to reporters, DeSantis reiterated his stance that Palestinian refugees should not be coming to the U.S.
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“We cannot be absorbing people coming from Gaza to the United States of America,” he said. “All those Arab countries for years have not done anything with respect to helping Palestinian Arabs. And so now’s the time for them to step up. They should do that.”
DeSantis also called on Hamas to stop using innocent people as human shields by not letting them leave Gaza as Israel conducts military operations in the area.
“Hamas should stop having people in Gaza stay knowing operations are going to happen. They’re using them as human shields; that’s wrong. They should tell them to get out,” he said. “But Egypt should open the gates, Saudi should help out, and that should do, but we cannot import to the United States.”
WATCH:
DeSantis is asked if the U.S. should play a role with Palestinian refugees.
“Arab nations should absorb anybody leaving Gaza. We cannot be absorbing people coming from Gaza to the United States of America.” pic.twitter.com/Qtn9St4seW
— DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) October 14, 2023