In a major step towards holding the Biden administration accountable for violating the law, U.S. District Court Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryck denied the Biden Administration’s motion to dismiss America First Legal’s (AFL) first amended complaint regarding federal funding for Palestinian terrorism.
This decision allows the case to proceed, challenging the administration’s $1.5 billion subsidy program for Palestinians. The case claims that the administration is violating the Taylor Force Act by sending foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority.
The lawsuit was brought on December 20, 2022, by AFL on behalf of the U.S. Rep. Ronny L. Jackson (R-TX), Stuart and Robbi Force, the parents of murdered West Point graduate and Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran Taylor Force who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in Israel, and Sarri Singer, a survivor of a Hamas suicide attack on a Jerusalem, Israel municipal bus. The government moved to dismiss. On February 22, 2024, Judge Kacsmaryck denied the government’s motion.
The Plaintiffs then amended their complaint, including additional allegations that the Biden Administration has violated the Taylor Force Act and illegally overturned the Trump Administration’s “no funds” policy in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, knowingly subsidizing the Palestinian Authority’s “pay-to-slay” bounty system, the expansion of Hamas’s military capabilities, and the United Nations Relief Works Agency’s (UNRWA) material support for Palestinian terrorism.
The government moved to dismiss the Plaintiffs’ First Amended Complaint. Judge Kacsmaryck again rejected President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken’s claims.
The Taylor Force Act, passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2017, cuts off U.S. economic aid that directly benefits the Palestinian Authority until they end violence against U.S. and Israeli citizens, condemn such acts of violence, and end payments to terrorists and their families. The bill is named after a former U.S. Army officer, Taylor Force, who was stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist in Tel Aviv.
The Palestinian Authority’s “Martyrs’ Fund” pays stipends to terrorists and their families equal to several times the average monthly wage for a Palestinian worker. President Donald Trump introduced the Taylor Force Act on March 23, 2018, to halt the continued transfer of aid, and by the end of that year, an estimated $500 million of US aid to the PA had been saved.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama came under great Republican scrutiny when, in his administration’s final hours, the U.S. quietly sent $221 million to the Palestinian Authority.
