US deports two Palestinians who landed with valid visas for an interfaith mission

Two Palestinian peace activists who were detained upon landing in the US during a trip sponsored by a synagogue were deported from San Francisco on Friday, friends and fellow activists have told Middle East Eye. 

Eid Hathaleen and Awdah Hathaleen, cousins from the Masafer Yatta village of Umm al-Khair in the occupied West Bank, possessed valid visas and, after being detained, had their visas revoked upon landing in the US on Wednesday. 

Eid, an artist and photographer, and Awdah, an English teacher and contributor to Israeli magazine +972, landed in San Francisco on a flight from Doha, Qatar, on Wednesday.

The trip was sponsored by Kehilla Community Synagogue in Piedmont, California. The cousins were scheduled to speak at churches, synagogues, and other establishments as part of an interfaith humanitarian mission that was supposed to take them from California to Washington, DC, and then Boston. 

Eid had been to the United States multiple times on the visa he held. Awdah had been issued a visa in May and was going to the US for the first time. But the two were detained on arrival, had their visas summarily revoked, and were informed that they would be deported in 24 hours. 

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Phil Weintraub, lead organiser of a Palestinian solidarity committee at the Kehilla Community Synagogue in Piedmont, which sponsored the trip, told MEE: “We are heartbroken that our friends were denied entry for their humanitarian mission. They came to thank us and raise funds for their village's summer camp. The Trump regime cancelling their visas was an act of cruelty and nothing else.”

The two landed back in Qatar on Friday. They are currently stuck there, with no flights onwards to Jordan because of Israel's attack on Iran.

'Non-violent peace activists'

US authorities have so far provided no explanation for their actions, despite a Bay Area congressional delegation that includes senior Democrat Nancy Pelosi issuing a statement demanding a justification for the deportations. 

Erin Axelman, co-director of the documentary Israelism, who has seen Eid speak on numerous occasions and is a supporter of his work, told MEE the cousins were “profoundly important Palestinian peace activists who travelled to the US legally at the invite of progressive Jewish communities, for a speaking tour about peace and justice in Palestine.”

“The Trump administration detained them, and now deported them, solely because they are Palestinian,” Axelman said.

'Detaining Eid and Awhad does nothing to advance Jewish safety, saying so is a horrible joke, and is offensive to Jewish Americans'

- Erin Axelman, filmmaker and activist

Ben Linder, co-chair of the Silicon Valley chapter of J Street and the organiser of Eid and Awdah's first scheduled speaking engagement, which was supposed to take place at a Methodist church on Thursday, told MEE that friends and sponsors of the Palestinians had similarly been kept in the dark. 

Linder, who has known the cousins for ten years, described them as "true non-violent peace activists".

"They came here on an interfaith peace-promoting mission. Having the US government revoke already granted, already screened visas, to crack down on peace activism is a new chapter," Linder said. "That peace activism by Palestinians is verboten is a scary, scary thought."

According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, since October last year, the US has "removed" 157,948 people from the country, which includes 72,179 done during the first 100 days of Trump's administration. The administration claims it has removed double that figure, but those numbers have not yet been verified.

Many of those removed from the country had valid visas or permanent residency and are part of a mass deportation plan pledged during Trump's presidential campaign. 

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he has revoked thousands of visas, primarily from students. The administration says it has also arrested over 158,000 "illegal aliens". 

A large number of the deportations or revocations of visas have been done on the basis of people's views or protests related to the Israel-Palestine conflict, and people with pro-Palestinian views have been targeted and punished for those views. The administration routinely equates pro-Palestinian activism with antisemitism.

"Detaining Eid and Awhad does nothing to advance Jewish safety, saying so is a horrible joke, and is offensive to Jewish Americans who see similarities between how Palestinians are being treated, and how Jews were treated in Europe for so many centuries,” Axelman, the filmmaker, who is Jewish, said.

middleeasteye.net