Anyone who participated in the October 7 massacre will be barred from moving to the United States, according to the “No Immigrants Benefits for Hamas Terrorists Act of 2025.” The House of Representatives unanimously approved the bill on Monday.
Rep. Tom McClintock (R-California) proposed the bill, which was said to be a rare moment of bipartisanship for a vote relating to Israel.
The bill seeks to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act with respect to foreign nationals who carried out, participated in, planned, financed, supported, or otherwise facilitated the terrorist attacks against Israel.
“There are still some things we can come together on in this body, and one of them is opposition to Hamas and the terrorism they unleashed on civilians in Israel more than two years ago,” McClintock told Fox News Digital. “What this does is place them in the same category as Nazi collaborators in the Holocaust, which are also referenced in the Immigration Nationality Act.”
He cited the case of Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub al-Muhtadi, a Gaza-born resident of Lafayette, Louisiana, who entered the US in 2024. Muhtadi was arrested in October and charged with his involvement in the October 7 massacre.
Hamas, PIJ barred from entering US
If the bill passes into law, the secretary of homeland security will need to submit a report to Congress detailing the number of foreign nationals found to be inadmissible for entry to the US due to their involvement with Hamas terrorism. The report will have to be presented no later than one year after the enactment of the act and then every year.
The bill adds both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to the list of terrorist groups whose members and supporters are barred from the US under the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Democrats said they support the legislation but took issue with amending the Immigration and Nationality Act to include a specific terrorist attack.
“To put into perspective just how anomalous this approach is, consider our response to the 9/11 attacks and the aftermath of that catastrophe,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) said. “We revised our immigration laws to overhaul significant parts of our immigration system, and we created the Department of Homeland Security, [but] we did not amend the act to reference the events of September 11.”
The bill will now head to the Senate.