Washington, D.C. – More than a hundred employees of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have signed an open letter to Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas denouncing the department’s handling of the war in Gaza.
The letter, exclusively obtained by Al Jazeera, expresses frustration at the “palpable, glaring absence in the ministry’s messages” of “recognition, support and mourning” for the more than 18,000 Palestinians who have been killed since the war began on October 7. died in Gaza. .
“The serious humanitarian crisis in Gaza and conditions in the West Bank are circumstances to which the Department would generally respond in different ways,” said the letter, dated November 22.
“Yet DHS leadership has seemingly turned a blind eye to the bombing of refugee camps, hospitals, ambulances and civilians.”
Signatories to the letter include 139 personnel from DHS and the agencies it manages, such as Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
But some staff members “chose to sign this letter anonymously” for fear of backlash, the document explained. It called on DHS to “provide a fair and balanced account of the situation and allow respectful expressions without fear of professional repercussions.”
DHS did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment at the time of publication.
The letter is the latest indication of rifts within the administration of President Joe Biden, which has faced internal criticism over his administration’s stance on the Gaza war.
Last month, more than 500 officials from 40 government agencies sent an anonymous letter urging Biden to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Another letter, signed by a thousand U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employees, made a similar call.
But Biden was reluctant to criticize Israel’s ongoing military offensive in Gaza, instead pledging his “firm and unwavering” support for the longtime US ally.
In an internal message on November 2, Mayorkas reiterated Biden’s position. He denounced the “heinous terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7” perpetrated by the Palestinian group Hamas, but made no mention of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“The consequences [of October 7] continue to cut across Jewish, Arab-American, Muslim and other communities everywhere,” Mayorkas wrote.
“I am encouraged knowing that our department is on the front lines of protecting our communities from anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and other forms of bigotry and hatred.”
![A close-up of Joe Biden wearing a dark suit and blue and yellow patterned tie. He wears a translation earpiece and a lapel pin bearing the flags of Ukraine and the US. An American flag is visible behind him.](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/2023-12-12T223914Z_324104918_RC2TV4A22QTY_RTRMADP_3_UKRAINE-CRISIS-USA-ZELENSKIY-1702437033.jpg?resize=770%2C513)
But two DHS staffers who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity believed that the department’s leadership should go further to address the rising death toll in Gaza, where civilians remain under Israeli siege.
United Nations experts have already warned of a “serious risk of genocide” in the area as supplies run low and bombs continue to fall.
“I am deeply committed to the federal government,” said an anonymous DHS official. “I have served in various capacities. I believed very much in our mission.
“And then, after October 7, I feel like there’s just been a dramatic shift in the expectation of what we should do when there’s a humanitarian crisis and what we actually do when there’s politics involved. very, very terrifying, chilling impact.
The staff open letter calls on DHS to take action in Gaza “consistent with previous responses to humanitarian tragedies,” including by establishing a humanitarian parole program for Palestinians in the territory.
That would allow them to temporarily enter the US “on the basis of urgent humanitarian reasons or reasons of overriding public interest.”
The letter also urged DHS to identify residents of the Palestinian territories who qualified for “temporary protected status,” or TPS. That would allow Palestinians already in the US to remain in the country and qualify for work permits.
Such programs have been established for other conflicts, including for Ukrainians facing a large-scale invasion from Russia.
Last month, 106 members of Congress — including Sen. Dick Durbin and Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Jerry Nadler — even sent a letter to Biden urging a TPS designation for the Palestinian territories.
![Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Joe Biden stand behind wooden podiums and in front of Ukrainian and American flags during a press conference at the White House.](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/AP23346804933898-1702437309.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513)
But one of the anonymous DHS officials who spoke to Al Jazeera said that while there has been discussion about a possible TPS designation, action seems unlikely.
“There have been many serious systemic and programmatic obstacles caused purely by politics,” she said.
Part of the challenge is that the US does not recognize Palestine as a foreign state, calling into question its eligibility for TPS.
“We do not recognize Palestine as a state. We don’t code them with that,” the DHS official explained. “And that’s something from Customs and Border Protection, ICE and USCIS. Obstacles have just been put in place at the highest levels of these agencies.”
The official suspects she knows why. “They are concerned about their own operations in terms of removing or deporting people to Gaza and the West Bank if they were to change these codes.”
But that inaction has taken a heavy toll on workers’ mental health, according to the DHS officials Al Jazeera spoke to.
One described how colleagues with family in Gaza had received no support from DHS leadership as they tried to get their relatives to safety.
The other, a senior employee who worked for the federal government for more than a decade, described nightmares about losing his own children.
He said he wakes up “with the knowledge that we are not really doing everything we can to provide programs and assistance to the Palestinians.”
“It is absolutely disturbing and disheartening to feel like we are not addressing anything for political reasons [the conflict] in the same way as in other previous, recent humanitarian crises, for example in Ukraine.”
![An aerial view of the damage and debris after an Israeli airstrike on homes in southern Gaza.](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/2023-12-12T174118Z_1771912852_RC2QV4ADES8Z_RTRMADP_3_ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS-GAZA-DAMAGE-1702437448.jpg?resize=770%2C505)
The senior official expressed dismay that Biden’s immigration policies have remained similar to those of his predecessor, former President Donald Trump.
Biden has been under pressure to limit arrivals into the US, especially as migration across the US-Mexico border increases.
“The problem, frankly, is that the Biden administration has been very lukewarm about going too far on immigration and focusing almost entirely on the southern border and how that affects the administration politically. That has had a lot of influence on decision-making regarding new programs,” the official said.
That lukewarmness has left many of the anonymous DHS officials feeling demoralized and questioning their sense of mission.
“We have the ability to do anything, anything, but we just aren’t,” one of the officials said.