President Barack Obama's administration took advice "from the Muslim Brotherhood" that allowed a temporary protection status program for immigrants to shift into one that allowed potentially dangerous people to constantly renew their statuses and remain in the United States, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, claimed Wednesday.
"The Obama administration had Muslim brothers advising them," Gohmert told Fox News' "Fox & Friends." "We know from the Muslim Brotherhood, they bragged about people being in Homeland Security and in each department and, in fact, they were. Their advice was to keep renewing these people, so that's exactly what the Obama administration did."
The program dates back to former President George H.W. Bush's White House, and started out with good intentions, Gohmert said, who is co-sponsoring a bill with Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., to stop the program from continuing.
"They took a good program that started under George H.W. Bush for humanitarian purposes, and they turned it into a program that could be a way to hurt our country," Gohmert claimed.
"It ran afoul when you started having radical Islamists that would destroy their country, just having upheaval, putting it into civil war, and then claim that they need to come to America to avoid their war torn country," Gohmert also said. "It becomes a way to come into the United States illegally, but permanently, and it's got to stop."
The problem is once people come into the United States under the policy, they renew their status over and over and end up staying in the country, said Gohmert, while blaming Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood.
The United States, he contended, has to force countries to take back such immigrants, "no matter what," and if the program is to continue, it ought to be a temporary program.
"This bill will force that to be reviewed and send people back that shouldn't be there," Gohmert said. "The bottom line is, if you are coming as a radical Islamist from a country that you've torn up with war, don't plan on staying to celebrate 9/11 in the United States. You will be out of here quicker than you can get here."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.