S 503: A bill to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to provide that members of Hamas (commonly known as the Islamic Resistance Movement) be considered to be engaged in a terrorist activity and ineligible to receive visas and excluded from admission into the United States.

Congress: 103 · Status: active · Israel/Palestine classification: pro-Israel

Data (JSON) — machine-readable record of this bill (identifiers, sponsor, classification, actions, and the member-by-member vote breakdown).

Official record on Congress.gov — full text, actions, and cosponsor history for S 503.

Sponsor: D'Amato, Alfonse (R-NY)

Summary

Amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to provide that members of Hamas (commonly known as the Islamic Resistance Movement) be considered to be engaged in a terrorist activity and ineligible to receive visas and excluded from admission into the United States.

Editorial Explainer

This bill amends immigration law to classify Hamas members as terrorists ineligible for U.S. visas or entry. Anyone identified as a Hamas member would be barred from admission to the United States under terrorism grounds.

Why it matters

The bill operatively designates Hamas membership itself as terrorist activity for immigration purposes, effectively treating the organization as a per se terrorist entity in U.S. law. This codifies a legal barrier affecting Palestinian political actors and signals congressional stance on Hamas's status in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Cosponsors (9)