Washington, DC – Greater than 100 workers members from the US Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) have signed an open letter to Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas denouncing the division’s dealing with of the battle in Gaza.
The letter, solely obtained by Al Jazeera, expresses frustration with the “palpable, evident absence within the Division’s messaging” of “recognition, assist, and mourning” for the greater than 18,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza because the begin of the battle on October 7.
“The grave humanitarian disaster in Gaza and the situations within the West Financial institution are circumstances that the Division would usually reply to in numerous methods,” the letter, dated November 22, mentioned.
“But DHS management has seemingly turned a blind eye to the bombing of refugee camps, hospitals, ambulances, and civilians.”
The letter’s signatories embody 139 workers members from DHS and the businesses it manages, like Customs and Border Safety (CBP), the Federal Emergency Administration Company (FEMA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Citizenship and Immigration Providers (USCIS).
However some workers members “elected to signal this letter anonymously” for concern of backlash, the doc defined. It referred to as for DHS to “present a good and balanced illustration of the state of affairs, and permit for respectful expression with out the concern {of professional} repercussions”.
DHS didn’t reply to Al Jazeera’s request for remark by the point of publication.
The letter is the most recent indication of fractures inside the administration of President Joe Biden, who has confronted inside criticism for his authorities’s stance on the Gaza battle.
Final month, greater than 500 officers from 40 authorities businesses issued an nameless letter pushing Biden to name for a direct ceasefire in Gaza. One other letter, signed by 1,000 staff from the US Company for Worldwide Improvement (USAID), expressed an identical enchantment.
However Biden has been reluctant to criticise Israel’s ongoing navy offensive in Gaza, as a substitute pledging his “rock strong and unwavering” assist for the longtime US ally.
In an inside message on November 2, Mayorkas echoed Biden’s stance. He denounced the “horrific terrorist assaults in Israel on October 7”, perpetrated by the Palestinian group Hamas, however made no point out of the humanitarian disaster in Gaza.
“The impacts [of October 7] proceed to brush by means of Jewish, Arab American, Muslim and different communities all over the place,” Mayorkas wrote.
“I’m heartened figuring out that our Division is on the entrance traces of defending our communities from antisemitism, Islamophobia, and different types of bigotry and hate.”
However two DHS workers members who spoke to Al Jazeera on the situation of anonymity felt that division management ought to be going additional to handle the mounting demise toll in Gaza, the place civilians stay beneath Israeli siege.
United Nations consultants have already warned of a “grave threat of genocide” within the territory, as provides run low and bombs proceed to fall.
“I’ve been very devoted to the federal authorities,” one nameless DHS official mentioned. “I’ve served in numerous capacities. I very a lot believed in our mission.
“After which, after October 7, I really feel like there has simply been a drastic shift on this expectation of what we’re alleged to do when there’s a humanitarian disaster and what we’re truly doing when there’s politics concerned, and that has a really, very scary, chilling influence.”
The workers’s open letter requires DHS to take actions in Gaza “commensurate with previous responses to humanitarian tragedies”, together with by means of the creation of a humanitarian parole programme for Palestinians within the territory.
That may enable them to briefly enter the US “based mostly on pressing humanitarian or important public profit causes”.
The letter additionally pushed DHS to designate residents of the Palestinian territories eligible for “momentary protected standing” or TPS. That may allow Palestinians already within the US to stay within the nation and qualify for employment authorisation.
Such programmes have been put in place for different conflicts, together with for Ukrainians going through full-scale invasion from Russia.
Final month, 106 members of Congress — together with Senator Dick Durbin and Representatives Pramila Jayapal and Jerry Nadler — even despatched a letter to Biden, urging a TPS designation for the Palestinian territories.
However one of many nameless DHS officers who spoke with Al Jazeera mentioned that, though there was dialogue a few attainable TPS designation, motion appears unlikely.
“There have been plenty of critical systemic and programmatic obstacles pushed purely by politics,” she mentioned.
A part of the problem is that the US doesn’t recognise Palestine as a overseas state, placing its eligibility for TPS unsure.
“We don’t recognise Palestine as a state. We don’t code them with that,” the DHS official defined. “And that’s one thing throughout Customs and Border Safety, ICE and USCIS. There have simply been obstacles raised on the highest ranges of these businesses.”
The official suspects she is aware of why. “They’re frightened about their very own operations by way of eradicating or deporting individuals to Gaza and the West Financial institution, in the event that they have been to alter these codes.”
However that inaction has levied a steep toll on staff’ psychological well being, in line with the DHS officers Al Jazeera spoke to.
One described how colleagues with household in Gaza had acquired no assist from DHS management as they tried to carry their kinfolk to security.
The opposite, a senior workers member who has spent greater than a decade working for the federal authorities, described having nightmares of shedding his personal youngsters.
He mentioned he wakes up “with the information that we’re not truly doing all that we are able to to offer programmes and reduction for the Palestinians”.
“It’s positively distressing and dispiriting to really feel like, for political issues, we’re not addressing [the conflict] in the identical means that we might different earlier, latest humanitarian crises, as an example, like Ukraine.”
The senior official voiced dismay that Biden’s immigration insurance policies have remained comparable to that of his predecessor, former President Donald Trump.
Biden has confronted stress to restrict the variety of arrivals within the US, significantly as migration throughout the US-Mexico border spikes.
“The difficulty is, truthfully, that the Biden administration has been actually tepid about transferring too far in entrance on immigration and is targeted nearly fully on the southern border and the way that impacts the administration politically. That has knowledgeable plenty of the decision-making with respect to new programmes,” the official mentioned.
That tepidness has left most of the nameless DHS officers feeling demoralised, questioning their sense of mission.
“Now we have the flexibility to do something, one thing, and we’re simply not,” one of many officers mentioned.
