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<\/a><\/p>\nBritish Jews pose in front of a large menorah as they gather for a Hanukkah event in Trafalgar Square in central London, Dec. 16, 2025. (Richard A. Brooks \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Robert Garson, a Jewish attorney from Manchester, England, with rising influence in the Trump administration, said he proposed the move to the State Department in an interview with The Telegraph.<\/p>\n
Garson said his proposal was well received despite the Trump administration\u2019s general anti-immigration stance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought: Jews are being persecuted in the United Kingdom,\u201d Garson said. \u201cThey fit a wonderful demographic for the United States. They are, on the whole, educated. They speak English natively. They\u2019ve got businesses. They\u2019re exactly the sort of immigrant the United States should want to attract. So, why not?\u201d<\/p>\n
Garson said his views on the future of Jews in Britain hardened after the terror attack on a synagogue in his hometown last year. Two people were killed at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation on Yom Kippur after a man rammed his car into a crowd of people and stabbed others.<\/p>\n
In October, the White House announced that it would restrict the number of refugees admitted to the United States to 7,500 in 2026, mostly reserving those spots for white South Africans. The number represents a steep drop from former President Joe Biden\u2019s ceiling of 125,000 in 2024.<\/p>\n
The administration\u2019s privileging of white South Africans has been widely criticized in South Africa, including by Jews. The country\u2019s chief rabbi Warren Goldstein, otherwise a vocal Trump supporter, called the move a \u201cmistake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garson was hired by Trump in 2022 to sue investigative journalist Bob Woodward for $50 million over Woodward\u2019s publication of Trump interviews in an audiobook. (The lawsuit was dismissed in July.) Donald Trump Jr. has also hired Garson as a lawyer for his publishing house, Winning Team Publishing, which has published the president, Charlie Kirk and other prominent conservatives.<\/p>\n
Garson\u2019s rise continued with an appointment to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council in May. He was among several Trump allies that the president named to replace members appointed by Biden, including Doug Emhoff, the Jewish husband of former Vice President Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at the time, \u201cPresident Trump looks forward to appointing new individuals who will not only continue to honor the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust, but who are also steadfast supporters of the State of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garson moved to New York in 2008 and now lives in Florida, where he is the head of armed security at his synagogue. After the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Garson became a National Rifle Association-licensed instructor and has offered to train any Jews who are interested.<\/p>\n
He believes that \u201cif there had been 6 million guns in 6 million Jewish hands, there would have been 6 million fewer deaths\u201d in the Holocaust, he told The Telegraph.<\/p>\n
Garson laid much of the blame for dangers to British Jews at the foot of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, saying that he \u201callowed rampant antisemitism to become commonplace in society and has allowed it to come from those who really don\u2019t have Britain\u2019s best interests at heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garson has expressed particular concern about the influence of Muslim immigrants in England, charging that non-Jewish Brits would also soon face \u201csharia-compliant areas.\u201d He said, \u201cThey are coming for the Jews and then they are coming for your pubs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some British Jewish groups have rejected the idea that British Jews would seek to leave for the United States. The Community Security Trust, an antisemitism watchdog, told Haaretz that \u201cJews were murdered by hateful terrorists in the United States as well as in the United Kingdom\u201d last year, so there was no refuge to be found there.<\/p>\n
David Aaronovitch, a British journalist and broadcaster, also rebuked Garson\u2019s proposal in a Jewish News op-ed addressed to Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cBritish Jews wouldn\u2019t be safer in the US, simply because no one is,\u201d said Aaronovitch. \u201cThe homicide rate in your country is six times what it is here; in fact, in Mr Garson\u2019s new domicile, Miami-Dade County, it\u2019s over 20 times the rate here in London.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also noted the debate in Trump\u2019s own party over its inclusion of avowed antisemites such as Nick Fuentes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt hasn\u2019t escaped the notice of many British Jews that some of the most vocal and influential new media supporters of your administration have either given themselves over to overt, old-style antisemitism or have shown themselves happy to tolerate others who have,\u201d said Aaronovitch.<\/p>\n
Ofir Sofer, Israel\u2019s minister of aliyah and integration, also responded dismissively to the idea that British Jews should leave for the United States. \u201cThe home of British Jewry, and of Jews around the world, is the State of Israel,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n