The Biden administration is considering welcoming certain Palestinians to the U.S. as refugees as they seek to escape war-torn Gaza amid the ongoing war in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas.

Senior officials across several federal U.S. agencies have discussed in recent weeks the details of potential options to accept Palestinians from Gaza who have immediate family members who are American citizens or permanent U.S. residents, internal federal government documents show, according to CBS News.

One proposal involves using the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program to bring Palestinians with U.S. connections who have escaped Gaza and entered neighboring Egypt, the documents reveal.

U.S. officials have also considered welcoming additional Palestinians out of Gaza and are processing them as refugees if they have American relatives, according to the documents. This proposal would have to rely on coordination with Egypt, which has thus far been reluctant to welcome large numbers of people from Gaza.

People from Gaza who pass a series of eligibility, medical and security screenings would qualify to be flown to the U.S. with refugee status, which includes permanent residency, resettlement benefits like housing assistance and a path to American citizenship.

The number of people eligible is expected to be relatively small, but the proposed plans could provide a lifeline to some Palestinians seeking to escape the Israel-Hamas war.

This, as the Hamas-run government’s Health Ministry estimates more than34,000dead, more than 77,000 injured and hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced in Gaza.

Hamas terrorists launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,200 people, prompting military retaliation from Israeli forces. Hamas also kidnapped more than 200 people, with many of them still in captivity.

‘Since the beginning of the conflict, the United States has helped more than 1,800 American citizens and their families leave Gaza, many of whom have come to the United States,’ a White House spokesperson told Fox News Digital. ‘At President Biden’s direction, we have also helped, and will continue to help, some particularly vulnerable individuals, such as children with serious health problems and children who were receiving treatment for cancer, get out of harm’s way and receive care at nearby hospitals in the region.’

‘The United States also continues to be the largest contributor of humanitarian assistance to Gaza to address the dire conditions, and we are pressing hard to get more urgently-needed aid in to more people as soon as possible,’ the spokesperson continued. ‘We have also been clear and consistent: the United States categorically rejects any actions leading to the forced relocation of Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank or the redrawing of the borders of Gaza. The best path forward is to achieve a sustainable cease-fire through a hostage deal that will stabilize the situation and pave the way to a two-state solution.’

The proposals also come after President Biden issued a memorandum on Deferred Enforced Departure in February for certain Palestinians who were already in the U.S.

The plan to bring certain Palestinians to the U.S. as refugees would represent a shift in longstanding U.S. government policy and practice, as the U.S. refugee program has not resettled Palestinians in large numbers since its inception in 1980.

In the past decade, the U.S. has resettled more than 400,000 refugees fleeing violence and war across the world, but less than 600 were Palestinian. In fiscal year 2023, the U.S. accepted 56 Palestinian refugees out of the more than 60,000 refugees resettled during that 12 month span, according to data from the State Department.

For applicants to qualify to enter the U.S. as a refugee, they must prove they are fleeing persecution based on certain factors, such as nationality, religion or political views.

The administration’s plans to welcome Palestinian refugees, even if only a small number, could lead to criticism from Republican lawmakers who look to make the illegal immigration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border a central issue ahead of the November elections.

Shortly after Hamas’ attack against Israel on Oct. 7, top Republicans said the U.S. should not welcome Palestinian refugees, claiming that they are antisemitic and potential national security risks.

The Biden administration in recent years has dramatically increased refugee resettlement. Officials have established a goal of accepting up to 125,000 refugees in fiscal year 2024, which ends at the end of September.

The refugee resettlement was cut to record lows during the Trump administration.

The Biden administration has allowed billions in sanctions waivers that benefit Iran, with estimated billions more in unsanctioned oil sales, which allows the Iranian government to continue diverting money to its drone factories and funding proxy groups, an expert told Fox News Digital. 

‘What happens when you end up releasing that money is that it goes into the general funds, which can then be used in lots of different ways,’ Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), explained. 

‘If they are using the sanctions relief to fund their general budget, then ultimately [they] are to the benefit of the IRGC because the IRGC partakes in that regular budget,’ Schanzer said, noting the Biden administration has often argued that any waivers do not ultimately and directly benefit the Iranian military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). 

‘Let me put it this way: There is no way to do it without ultimately benefiting the regime and its ultimate objective, which is to fund its malign activities abroad,’ Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury noted.

A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the Biden administration ‘has not lifted a single sanction on Iran. Rather, we continue to increase pressure.’ 

‘Our extensive sanctions on Iran remain in place, and we continue to enforce them,’ the spokesperson said. ‘Over the last three years, the U.S. has sanctioned over 600 individuals and entities connected to the full range of Iran’s problematic and dangerous behaviors, UAV and missile proliferation, terrorism, terrorist financing and other forms of illicit trade, horrific human rights abuses and support for proxy terrorist groups.’ 

‘We have even seen the regime fail to meet its own revenue expectations as it struggles to evade our sanctions and find illicit buyers for its oil,’ the spokesperson said, not commenting on the fact Iran does find buyers for its oil. The spokesperson insisted that the U.S. sanctions, in combination with ‘Iran’s economy and regime mismanagement,’ have brought the country’s currency ‘to the lowest it has ever been against the U.S. dollar.’ 

A second State Department spokesperson reiterated the fact that the sanctions waiver allowing Iraq to buy electricity from Iran has been renewed 21 times since the Trump administration first issued the waiver in 2018 and that ‘any notion’ that money goes to Iran due to the waivers ‘is false and misleading.’ 

‘We have been in ongoing engagement with allies and partners, including at the G-7 and with the EU, on ways to increase pressure on Iran,’ the second spokesperson said. 

A Fox News Digital analysis, in combination with the FDD’s research, determined that Iran has received between $16 billion and $20 billion in sanctions waivers, with billions more gained through the sale of Iranian oil, which the U.S. has sanctioned but has not managed to totally prevent due to a mixture of lax government oversight and more sophisticated evasion methods. 

That includes a $10 billion sanctions waiver so Iraq can trade to obtain electricity from Iran, a $6 billion sanctions waiver agreed for South Korea to transfer money in exchange for the release of five Americans and $3.8 billion gained through the sale of petrochemicals in order to dodge a Trump-era sanction. 

The U.S. State Department in March came under fire for resuming a sanctions waiver, which had been renewed since the Trump administration first issued the waiver in 2018. Some experts estimated the waiver as having a valuation of around $10 billion for Iran. 

That waiver particularly allowed for the transfer of funds between Iran and Iraq so that Iraq, which remains a U.S. ally, could continue to use electricity imported from Iran – but critics saw it merely as another easement on sanctions against Iran. 

‘None of this money goes to the mullahs. None of this money goes into Tehran. The sanctions relief that is provided actually goes to vendors that provide humanitarian assistance to the Iranian people,’ White House national security advisor John Kirby told reporters at the time. 

‘Not only do the Iraqi people not suffer because of this, the Iranian people aren’t going to suffer because of this,’ Kirby added. ‘That allows for Iraq to be able to work its way off of Iranian energy so that they can keep the lights on.’

Schanzer countered the administration’s argument by noting that ‘as soon as [money] hits the system, it is going to be diverted or used in a cynical way,’ even taking what humanitarian aid gets into the country through third-party vendors and reselling it to the civilian population, effectively laundering the assistance into money. 

‘When we talk about dual-use goods or even things that they need in order to feed their fighters things along those lines, it is a consistently cynical diversion scheme,’ Schanzer said. ‘Whether we’re talking about Iran itself or we’re talking about Iran’s proxies.’

‘When the administration was saying that we shouldn’t be putting sanctions on the Houthis because it would ultimately block humanitarian assistance from getting into Yemen – guess what?’ Schanzer continued. ‘When that humanitarian assistance gets to Yemen, who benefits? The people that control the territory in question, which right now a large chunk of Yemen is controlled by the Houthis.’ 

The New York Times in February published the results of an investigation that determined Iran had managed to sell ‘oil worth billions of dollars’ thanks to ‘a significant gap in U.S. oversight.’ Shipping vessels owned by shell companies and using ‘spoofing’ methods to hide their location made dozens of trips throughout 2023 to ferry Iran’s oil under the sanctions. 

The lack of a total crackdown on Iran’s oil shipments has led a significant number of experts to argue that the Biden administration may have started willfully turning a blind eye to Iran’s activities – partially since the surge in oil sales is clear and evident.

Javier Blas, a long-time energy and commodities reporter, wrote in a Bloomberg op-ed that ‘the conspiracy theorist inside me says the White House has turned a blind eye to the Iranian sales because it’s more worried about inflation … not only has Iran boosted oil production, but its exports have surged even more because it’s been able to sell a large chunk of the crude it was forced to put in the past into storage, both onshore and into tankers turned into floating storage facilities.’ 

Iran’s growing cooperation with China also plays a significant role in how the country has managed to dodge sanctions, according to Foreign Policy, which cited a 25-year economic cooperation agreement the two countries agreed to in March 2021, as well as Iran’s decision to join the Beijing-led BRICS economic bloc, which gives Iran access to other currencies and trading options. 

‘There’s no question that Russia, China and others are working to provide assistance to the Iranians,’ Schanzer claimed. ‘We know this to be the case, but, with the Russians and Chinese, it’s often done in trade or in arms purchases, oil … if they get remuneration in rubles or in RMB (Chinese Yuan) in trade surplus where they can cash in for other products that’s not the same as dollars, and it’s not the same as some of the goods that will come through American channels.’ 

Fox News Digital’s Caitlin McFall contributed to this report. 

House Democratic leaders are vowing to shield House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., if Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., forces a vote on her motion to oust him from power.

‘From the very beginning of this Congress, House Democrats have put people over politics and found bipartisan common ground with traditional Republicans in order to deliver real results. At the same time, House Democrats have aggressively pushed back against MAGA extremism. We will continue to do just that,’ House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said in a joint statement with House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif.

‘At this moment, upon completion of our national security work, the time has come to turn the page on this chapter of Pro-Putin Republican obstruction. We will vote to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Motion to Vacate the Chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed.’

Their decision was announced right at the beginning of Johnson’s weekly House GOP leadership press conference, prompting a flurry of questions from reporters.

‘I have to do my job, we have to do what we believe to be the right thing. What the country needs right now is a functioning Congress,’ Johnson said when asked his reaction. ‘We need people who are serious about the job here.’

Johnson appeared unaware of Democratic leaders’ decision beforehand and said he did not discuss a motion to vacate with Jeffries earlier this month when Democratic voters were critical to passing Johnson’s $95 billion foreign aid plan.

Greene filed a measure calling for a vote to oust Johnson, known as a motion to vacate the chair, nearly 40 days ago in protest of his handling of government funding and foreign aid.

Her resolution earned two co-sponsors in Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., after the House passed a $61 billion aid package for Ukraine earlier this month, but for the most part, it has fallen flat within the GOP.

Even Johnson’s critics in the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus have distanced themselves from the push to oust Johnson, signaling little appetite for the three weeks of chaos that followed the ouster of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., last fall.

However, with the razor-thin majority Johnson oversees, it quickly became clear that Democratic support would likely be needed to keep him in power.

That does not necessarily mean Democrats have to vote against ousting Johnson – if Greene noticed her resolution as ‘privileged,’ meaning the House would need to take it up within two days, it would first trigger a vote to table her measure, effectively killing it. Democratic leaders signaled in their Tuesday statement that they would block it in the initial vote.

Fox News Digital reached out to Greene’s office for comment.

The White House condemned the mob of anti-Israel protesters who violently seized a building at Columbia University late Monday, saying ‘hate speech and hate symbols have no place in America.’

On Monday night, a massive mob of anti-Israel students broke into an academic building — the iconic Hamilton Hall on the Manhattan campus — and barricaded its doors. A Columbia University facilities worker said the protesters ‘held me hostage.’ 

Outside of Hamilton Hall, the anti-Israel rebels form a human barricade by linking their arms and vowing to remain until the university meets their three demands.

The students are demanding the university divest their financial support of Israel, become more transparent with its investments, and provide blanket amnesty to the protesting students for any consequences.

President Biden did not speak publicly on the violent antisemitic protests Tuesday morning, but the White House released a statement on his behalf. 

‘President Biden has stood against repugnant, Antisemitic smears and violent rhetoric his entire life,’ White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement. ‘He condemns the use of the term ‘intifada,’ as he has the other tragic and dangerous hate speech displayed in recent days.

‘President Biden respects the right to free expression, but protests must be peaceful and lawful,’ Bates continued. ‘Forcibly taking over buildings is not peaceful — it is wrong.’ 

He added: ‘And hate speech and hate symbols have no place in America.’

Columbia University announced its indefinite closure Tuesday morning ‘until circumstances allow otherwise.’

‘Effective immediately, access to the Morningside campus has been limited to students residing in residential buildings on campus (Carman, Furnald, John Jay, Hartley, Wallach, East Campus and Wien) and employees who provide essential services to campus buildings, labs and residential student life (for example, Dining, Public Safety, and building maintenance staff). There is no additional access to the Morningside campus,’ a statement from the university said.

It added: ‘This access restriction will remain in place until circumstances allow otherwise.’

In the post, the university said that the safety of students remained ‘paramount’ and thanked the community for ‘understanding’ the current crisis.

‘The safety of every single member of this community is paramount. We thank you for your patience, cooperation and understanding,’ the statement read.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is preparing to announce a wide-ranging investigation into antisemitism on college campuses that spans multiple House committees.

Multiple sources told Fox News Digital that at least six committees would be involved in the probe: the committees on Education & the Workforce, Energy & Commerce, Oversight, the Judiciary, Ways & Means and the committee on Science, Space & Technology. 

The probe is a widening of the ongoing investigation into antisemitism on college campuses that is being led by the Education & Workforce Committee.

Two sources familiar with planning stressed to Fox News Digital that the committee’s roles are still mostly fluid and that the investigation is necessarily broad because each have some kind of jurisdiction in the matter.

Johnson is expected to hold a press conference with those committee chairs on Tuesday afternoon to unveil the probe. He spoke out forcefully against the demonstrations last week during a visit to Columbia University, where he also privately met with Jewish students who have said they feel unsafe on campus.

It comes as college campuses around the country are seeing a wave of anti-Israel demonstrations that sparked when Columbia University students and those at their sister school, Barnard College, were arrested for setting up an encampment on the Manhattan Ivy League’s grounds. The protests, done in opposition to Columbia’s investments in companies with Israeli ties, have continued since then.

The two sources who spoke with Fox News Digital said Columbia is likely to play a significant role, but they stressed the investigation would look into any universities getting federal funds. 

While the committees’ roles are fluid, the sources explained that there are some aspects broadly tailored to different panels’ jurisdictions – the Judiciary Committee’s portion, for example, would include looking at existing anti-discrimination laws, they said.

The Oversight Committee will, in part, be looking into who is funding the protests, a third source said.

A fourth source familiar with planning said the Ways & Means Committee will be examining the tax benefits these universities receive, and what they are doing to justify the tax benefits they are afforded under the current U.S. tax code.

During his visit to Columbia last week, Johnson denounced the protesters as a ‘mob’ and specifically denounced professors and other faculty who had joined the protests.

‘The college campus used to be the place for respectful debate, for the differences of opinion in the free marketplace of ideas to be discussed. That is not what is happening here,’ Johnson said. ‘You are intimidating and shouting down people you disagree with.’

In a press release announcing his Tuesday public remarks, Johnson said, ‘House Republicans, with leadership from committees of jurisdiction, will expand a wide-ranging investigation focused on holding accountable college and university administrators who fail at their core responsibility: keeping their students safe.’

The Biden administration’s decision to pause its plan to use the Leahy Law has averted a potentially messy problem for the White House, but willingness to use such a drastic tool underscores the uncertainty of U.S.-Israel relations. 

‘The Biden administration’s politicization of vital security assistance to a democratic ally like Israel is an irresponsible move that sets a dangerous precedent,’ Nick Stewart, senior director of government relations at FDD Action, told Fox News Digital. 

‘It ignores a crucial set of basic facts and feeds a false and damaging misrepresentation of Israel’s conduct that emboldens our terrorist adversaries,’ Stewart added. 

‘If the Biden administration had legitimate concerns, it should have addressed them in a much more professional manner through official channels directly with the Israelis, as befits our alliance,’ he argued. ‘Instead, the very public threat of sanctions was followed by constant and seemingly coordinated leaks from the State Department.’

‘This raises concerns that the objective from the start was far less substantive and much more political,’ Stewart alleged. ‘Congress should consider probing the administration’s handling of this incident to ensure U.S. laws are not being weaponized against an ally for partisan reasons in this political season.’

The Leahy Law is a set of two provisions that prohibit the U.S. government from providing funds to foreign security forces where ‘there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights,’ according to a State Department packet on the policy. 

The Biden administration had indicated its intent to invoke the act as a means of sanctioning Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) battalions, including Netzah Yehuda battalion, for alleged human rights violations in the West Bank before the Oct. 7 attack. The move would mark the first time in the decadeslong partnership between the two countries that a U.S. administration would have invoked the 27-year-old congressional act. 

The sanctions would have triggered an automatic cut-off for the battalion and its members, preventing them from receiving any type of training or assistance from the U.S. military and any sort of foreign aid. 

However, the U.S. announced over the weekend that it would not invoke the Leahy Law after receiving ‘new information’ from the Israeli government and guarantees from the government that would handle the issue. 

State Department principal deputy spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters on Monday that four of the units in question had ‘effectively remediated’ and the U.S. remains ‘in consultations and engagements with the government of Israel’ on the remaining unit. He also noted that ‘the remediation standard is consistent and it is the same for all countries.’ 

‘They have submitted additional information as it pertains to that unit. And we’re continuing to have those conversations consistent with the memorandum of understanding that we have with the government of Israel that was entered into in 2021,’ Patel said. 

‘When conclusions are made under actions that fall under the auspices of the Foreign Assistance Act, we are required to consult with officials from the government of Israel, and that is ongoing,’ Patel continued. ‘We are engaging with them in a process, and we will make an ultimate decision when it comes to that unit when that process is complete.’

‘When we’re talking about the Leahy Law, what we are talking about our unit and component restrictions, when they are found in violation, it is not have bearing on the broader security relationship that we may have with a country, especially a country like Israel, in which we have a longstanding security relationship. The provision of bulk assistance that’s gone back many, many years,’ Patel added. 

A senior State Department official told Fox News that Secretary of State Antony Blinken has raised the matter with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. 

Former Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy had championed legislation that became the Leahy Law in the 1990s, saying the U.S. needed a tool to block American military aid and training to foreign security units guilty of extrajudicial killings, rapes, torture and other flagrant human rights abuses.

Rights groups long have accused U.S. administrations, including Biden’s, of shirking rigorous investigations of allegations of Israeli military killings and other abuses against Palestinians to avoid invoking such laws aimed at conditioning military aid to lawful behavior by foreign forces, according to The Associated Press.  

The development comes as Israeli officials are growing concerned that the International Criminal Court could soon issue arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials over charges related to the war in Gaza, reports say. 

The court may accuse senior government figures of pursuing an excessively harsh military response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, the New York Times is reporting, citing Israeli and foreign officials.   

Fox News correspondent Gillian Turner, Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace and Greg Norman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.