New York church group fights to get home from Israel

Up to 20 members of a church group from New York City are stuck in Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, with some Dominican immigrants unable to get visas to board available flights.

The International Missionary Commission Narrow Door Pentecostal Church group arrived at the airport early Tuesday morning, after its Jerusalem hotel reservation expired and amid growing tensions over the bloody conflict between Israel and Hamas.

“When they landed in Israel, it was the same day the war started, on Saturday,” said Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), whose office is trying to help get the group back home.

The group members were locked in the hotel until the reservation ended and were told they should leave, but they had nowhere to go.

That’s when the transportation company the group had hired stepped in and offered to take 15 of the members to the airport, according to Espaillat.

Two members of the group days earlier paid $11,000 each to be evacuated through the Jordanian border.

The remaining 15 members of the tour bought airplane tickets at the airport for up to $4,000, some using debit cards, but their flight was canceled.

The few flight options available are offered at exorbitant prices.

“It’s the same as trying to get a last-minute airline ticket on Thanksgiving,” said Stephen Davis, whose wife Mzrai Davis-Peres and brother-in-law José González are in the group.

Davis said his family is saddened they will no longer feel safe traveling to Israel and shocked by the violence.

“And that’s the real tragedy. I mean, they’re from New York. New York is everybody in the world. There’s not one place on Earth not represented in New York. And does New York have some problems? Yes. But for the majority of the people that live there, they get along and they live in peace, and there’s not a problem,” he said.

Espaillat’s office worked overnight to speed up refunds to allow the group members to buy new tickets as they became available, but other complications popped up.

Some group members are diabetic and have run out of insulin, according to the New York Democrat, and four are Dominican citizens with green cards, meaning they need visas to take flights through Europe.

Another four members of the group were able to board a flight through Greece, but seven Dominican citizens and their immediate relatives were left behind.

Espaillat said he is unsure how many people are in the group. At least one woman from New Jersey joined the New Yorkers in seeking help from his office.

“Since they are traveling with some of their children — one daughter, for example, in one case, she’s an American citizen and she could leave, she’s not going to leave her mother alone,” Espaillat said.

He said he has called the White House and the State Department for assistance in getting one-day visas for the Dominican nationals to fly through Greece.

The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.

The State Department on Thursday announced plans to arrange charter flights to help U.S. citizens and their immediate family members depart Israel to other nearby locations.

“From these locations, individuals will be able to make their own onward travel arrangements to the destination of their choice. These initial transportation options will be augmented in the coming days,” reads a State Department press release.

Dominican nationals require preapproved visas in 114 countries, including every nation in the European Union, according to the Passport Index. They can get visas on arrival in some countries near Israel, such as Jordan, Egypt and Turkey.

It’s unclear whether the State Department-sponsored flights will fly to countries where only U.S. citizens can enter visa-free, or stop in visa-on-arrival countries.

“All of this has been a nightmare, because the State Department obviously didn’t have a plan in place for evacuation — how to get American citizens out of Israel in the middle of a war,” Espaillat said.

—Updated Friday at 11:01 a.m.