More than 90 members of the United States House of Representatives have had enough. On May 26, 2026, Congressman Mike Lawler of New York’s 17th district led a bipartisan group of colleagues in a direct letter to President Donald Trump demanding the full dismantlement of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees — UNRWA. The letter is not a call for reform. It is not a request for a review. It is a demand for termination, replacement, and accountability. After 77 years of an agency that was created as a temporary fix, became a permanent institution, and is now linked by credible evidence to the very terrorist organization that massacred over 1,200 people on October 7, 2023 — Congress is saying enough is enough.

The Indictment: Four Counts Against UNRWA

The congressional letter lays out a systematic case against UNRWA that goes beyond a single incident or a single controversy. It is a structural indictment of an agency that has, by design or dysfunction, made the Palestinian refugee crisis permanent rather than solving it — and that has done so with billions of dollars in American taxpayer money.

The Letter: What Congress Is Demanding

The letter, addressed directly to President Trump, goes beyond identifying problems. It calls for specific, irreversible action — not another review, not a temporary funding pause, not a reformist committee. The lawmakers want UNRWA gone and replaced.

The alternative they propose is practical and actionable: shift humanitarian assistance for Palestinians to host countries directly, to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) — which applies normal refugee definitions and supports integration — or to vetted non-governmental organizations with zero ties to designated terrorist groups. The argument is not anti-Palestinian. It is anti-corruption, anti-radicalization, and pro-accountability. Americans who give their tax dollars to humanitarian aid have a right to know those dollars are not funding Hamas.

The Signatories: 90+ Members and Bipartisan Support

The letter carries more than 90 signatures — overwhelmingly Republican, but with the notable inclusion of Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, one of the most prominent Democratic voices on Israel-related issues in Congress. The breadth of the signatory list reflects how far the consensus against UNRWA has spread on Capitol Hill since October 7.

The Senate has moved in parallel. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas led a similar letter in the upper chamber — a coordinated bicameral effort signaling that congressional will to defund and dismantle UNRWA is not limited to one chamber or one caucus. What began after October 7 as widespread outrage has hardened into legislative intent.

77 Years of Failure — The Agency That Was Never Supposed to Last

UNRWA was created in 1949 as a temporary agency. That word — temporary — matters. Every other refugee crisis in the 20th and 21st centuries has been handled by the UNHCR, which works toward the permanent solution of refugee crises through resettlement, integration, or voluntary return. For Palestinians, the United Nations created a separate system — one that explicitly excluded any of those three outcomes as its goal, one that instead defined refugee status as hereditary, and one that has therefore grown rather than shrunk with each passing decade.

This is not an accident of history. It is a structural choice — made in 1949, maintained ever since, and now defended by an international bureaucracy with a vested institutional interest in the problem never being solved. The Palestinian people are not served by this system. They are trapped by it. And American taxpayers are funding the trap.

What Comes After UNRWA — and Why the Timing Is Right

The congressional letter does not simply demand demolition. It proposes a path forward: transition UNRWA’s legitimate humanitarian functions — food, healthcare, education — to organizations that are demonstrably free of terrorist ties, committed to transparency, and oriented toward genuine long-term solutions rather than permanent refugee maintenance. That means UNHCR, properly resourced and given the mandate to apply its normal standards. It means host governments — Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt — taking on direct responsibility for Palestinian residents with appropriate U.S. and international support. And it means vetted NGOs with clean track records replacing UNRWA’s operational footprint on the ground.

The timing of this letter is also not accidental. The Trump administration is in the midst of maximum-pressure diplomacy against Iran and its proxies — including Hamas. The argument that the United States is simultaneously funding an agency with documented Hamas ties while prosecuting a war against Iran’s terror network is one that has become politically and strategically untenable. Secretary Rubio has already used the State Department to revoke visas of Hamas supporters. The Pentagon has been sinking Iranian attack boats in the Strait of Hormuz. And 90 members of Congress are now saying: finish the job at the UN, too.

The Bottom Line: Accountability Is Not Optional

The United States has given billions of dollars to UNRWA over its 77-year history. Those dollars have built schools where children were taught that Israelis are not human. They have funded an agency whose employees participated in the worst massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust. They have maintained a bureaucracy whose institutional survival depends on the Palestinian refugee problem never being resolved. That ends — or it should end — with the delivery of this letter to the President’s desk.

Congressman Lawler and his 90+ colleagues have put on record what millions of Americans already believe: the Palestinian people deserve genuine humanitarian assistance — delivered by organizations that are accountable, transparent, and not in bed with the terrorist group that has kept them trapped in conflict for generations. UNRWA is not that organization. It never was. It is time to build something better, and the United States Congress is ready to make sure it happens.