CLINTON, Iowa.—Florida Governor Ron DeSantis made clear his intention to cancel student visas for all foreign students who openly support the terrorist group Hamas in a multi-day campaign event marathon across two states.
While campaigning in several towns in South Carolina and Iowa this week to launch his new coalition “Veterans for DeSantis,” the Republican presidential candidate made his position known on the Israel-Hamas War.
He specifically called out Harvard students for holding demonstrations in favor of Hamas’ attacks “before the blood was even dry on the civilians in Israel that had been massacred.”
The anti-Israel positions of many prestigious college campuses, he said, were “a huge problem for our country to see” and a “disgrace to the nation.”
“I can tell you this,” he said, “when I’m president, if you’re a foreigner here on a student visa, and you’re making common cause with Hamas, I’m canceling your visa, and I’m sending you home.”
When asked about First Amendment concerns by members of the press, the governor defended the protesters’ right to openly praise the Gaza-based terrorist organization after saying he was not offended by these students opposing Israel, but rather that they were celebrating Hamas.
“It’s also representative of a sickness in our society that people would cheer that type of barbarism, and these universities have created a culture where that’s somehow okay.”
Along with the revoking of student visas, Mr. DeSantis added: “I think it’s totally appropriate for these companies to look at students who signed the pro-Hamas letters and say, ‘you know what? We’re gonna withdraw job offers,’ and all that stuff.
“You do have to draw a line.”
The governor also used pro-Hamas bias to justify his stance against opening up America to Palestinian refugees.
This is in contrast to fellow candidate and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, who has argued that weeding out pro-Hamas Arabs is possible.
While he concedes that not everyone in the Gaza Strip is Hamas, Mr. DeSantis told his audiences that the Palestinian people did vote Hamas into power in the region, and “most of the people” were cheering in the streets in response to the attacks on Israel.
‘Interests of Our People’
“There’s a toxicity to the culture that they have created there,” he said. “And so when you’re doing things, we need to do things that are in the interest of our people.“And the question is—is it in the interest of Americans to be importing some of that toxic culture from the Middle East into our country? And it’s not in our interest to do that.”
Mr. DeSantis also rejected the idea that refugees should be displaced halfway around the world and the neighboring Arab countries should be stepping up to take care of them.
He also took a stand against the Biden administration’s desire to try to work with both sides of the conflict and send $100 million in humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people.
“They have Americans being held hostage right now and yet [President Joe] Biden wants to send $100 million to the Gaza Strip. That’s gonna get commandeered by Hamas,” he told potential South Carolina voters on Oct. 20.
“We know that that’s the case, and I’ve been very clear not one red cent to Hamas.”
He repeated this position to applauding crowds. But not everybody in attendance was in agreement.
Iowa resident Kurt Johnson told The Epoch Times after Mr. DeSantis’ PAC event in Clinton, Iowa, that America should welcome refugees.
“All they’ve known is hate,” he said. “They’ve never known love. We should show them that we are compassionate and we are accepting. Not that we despise them because of the way that they were raised or the way that they were taught. Hate is never born. You learn hate.”
But Mr. Johnson, who described himself as still an undecided voter, agreed with the governor on the revoking of student visas, saying that the difference is a matter of education and ignorance.
“If you are in America ... and you are a foreigner here on an American visa, and you are supporting Hamas, you need to be kicked out of the country immediately,” he said.
If you’re in America, he said, you should know the rights and the wrongs of what’s going on over there and should not support Hamas at all.
At least one audience member was also left in disagreement after hearing the way Mr. DeSantis credited the actions to the current state of America’s education system, which, he continues to argue, is choosing ideology and indoctrination over education.
“The one thing I did disagree with him on is that he taught that schools aren’t supposed to teach ideology,” Steve from Sterling, Illinois, also told The Epoch Times in Clinton.
“Actually, we are. And then he mentioned civics. Civics is an ideology. It’s an American ideology, and the problem is that when you start bringing in people in masses into our country who don’t have the same ideology—the Judeo-Christian ideology of ‘love thy neighbor’ and ‘love thy God’–what ends up happening is you end up having problems.”
We have to have people understand what it means to be American, he said. And we need to have them understand the Judeo-Christian beliefs from which our Constitution’s foundation is made.
Mr. DeSantis continues his presidential campaign with another visit to New Hampshire on Oct. 24.
