Washington, D.C. – More than a hundred US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees have signed an open letter to the Secretary Alexander Mayorkas condemned the ministry’s handling of the war in Gaza.

The letter, obtained exclusively by Al Jazeera, expresses his frustration at the “palpable, glaring lack of “recognition, support and mourning” for the more than 18,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza since the war began on October 7 Ministry messages expressed.

“The severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the conditions in the West Bank are circumstances to which the ministry would generally respond in different ways,” the Nov. 22 letter said.

“Yet DHS leadership appears to have turned a blind eye to the bombing of refugee camps, hospitals, ambulances and civilians.”

Signatories to the letter include 139 employees of DHS and the agencies it manages, such as Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS ).

However, some employees “chose to sign this letter anonymously for fear of backlash,” the document says. It called on DHS to “provide a fair and balanced presentation of the situation and allow for respectful expression without fear of professional consequences.”

DHS did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment at the time of publication.

The letter is the latest indication of fissures within the administration President Joe BidenWHO introduced himself Internal criticism of his government’s stance on the Gaza war.

Last month, more than 500 officials from 40 government agencies published an anonymous letter urging Biden to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Another letterThe resolution signed by 1,000 employees of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) made a similar appeal.

But Biden was shy away from criticism Israel’s ongoing military offensive in Gaza, instead he pledged his “rock-solid and unwavering” support to the long-time US ally.

In an internal message on November 2, Mayorkas reiterated Biden’s stance. He condemned the “terrible terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7” carried out by the Palestinian group Hamas, but made no mention of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

“The effects [of October 7] continue to sweep across Jewish, Arab American, Muslim and other communities,” Mayorkas wrote.

“I am encouraged to know that our department is at the forefront of protecting our communities from anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and other forms of bigotry and hate.”

But two DHS officials who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity said the department leadership should go further to combat the rising death toll in Gaza, where civilians remain under Israeli siege.

United Nations experts have already warned of a “significant risk of genocide” in the area as supplies run out and bombs continue to fall.

“I have been very committed to the federal government,” said an anonymous DHS official. “I worked in various capacities. I believed very much in our mission.

“And then after October 7th, I feel like the expectation of what we should do when there’s a humanitarian crisis and what we actually do when it comes to policy has changed drastically , and that has a very, very frightening, frightening effect.”

The staff’s open letter calls on DHS to take actions in Gaza that are “consistent with previous responses to humanitarian tragedies,” including by creating a humanitarian probation program for the Palestinians in the area.

This would allow them to temporarily enter the US “for urgent humanitarian or important public interest reasons.”

The letter also urged DHS to designate residents of the Palestinian territories who are entitled to “temporary protection status” or TPS. This would allow Palestinians already in the US to remain in the country and qualify for work permits.

Such programs have also been set up for other conflicts, also for Ukrainians faces a full-scale invasion of Russia.

Last month, 106 members Members of Congress – including Senator Dick Durbin and Representatives Pramila Jayapal and Jerry Nadler – even sent a letter to Biden urging a TPS designation for the Palestinian territories.

But one of the anonymous DHS officials who spoke to Al Jazeera said that while there have been discussions about a possible TPS designation, action is unlikely.

“There were many serious systemic and programmatic obstacles caused entirely by politics,” she said.

Part of the challenge is that the US does not recognize Palestine as a foreign state, calling into question its eligibility for TPS.

“We do not recognize Palestine as a state. We don’t code them with that,” the DHS official explained. “And that includes Customs and Border Protection, ICE and USCIS. Obstacles have just emerged at the highest levels of these agencies.”

The officer suspects she knows why. “They are concerned about their own operations in terms of deporting or deporting people to Gaza and the West Bank if they were to change these codes.”

However, according to DHS officials Al Jazeera spoke with, this inaction is having a significant impact on employees’ mental health.

One described how colleagues with family in Gaza had received no support from DHS leadership as they tried to get their relatives to safety.

The other, a senior staffer who worked for the federal government for more than a decade, described having nightmares about losing his own children.

He said he was “waking up knowing that we are not doing everything we can to provide programs and assistance to the Palestinians.”

“It is definitely disturbing and disheartening to feel like we are not addressing issues for political reasons [the conflict] in the same way we would with other previous, recent humanitarian crises, for example in Ukraine.”

The senior official expressed dismay that Biden Immigration policy have remained similar to that of his predecessor, the former president Donald Trump.

Biden has been under pressure to limit the number of arrivals to the U.S., especially as migration across the U.S.-Mexico border increases.

“The problem, frankly, is that the Biden administration has been very cautious about going too far forward on immigration, focusing almost exclusively on the southern border and how that affects the administration politically. This has influenced many decisions regarding new programs,” the official said.

This lukewarmness has left many of the anonymous DHS officials feeling demoralized and questioning their sense of mission.

“We have the ability to do anything, but we just don’t have the ability,” one of the officials said.