75 Fall 2026 regardless of that entity’s structure, governance, or function, and without regard to the political branches’ contrary judgment.59 If courts immunize UNRWA despite the Executive’s contrary position and Congress’s statutory framework that expressly withholds such consent, the consequences will be severe.60 As former U.S. officials warned in the Second Circuit, because “national security lies within the ken of the Executive, not the judiciary, it would be absurd for courts to affirmatively undercut the Executive’s judgment that UNRWA poses a national security threat.”61 That warning carries particular force because the political branches are aligned. The State Department reported to Congress that it was maintaining “a policy of minimal contact with UNRWA” and “seek[ing] its full dismantlement” because it had “determined UNRWA is irredeemably compromised.” Congress, for its part, has suspended funding, expressed comparable alarm, and has enacted appropriations legislation that illuminates how UNRWA prevents U.S. participation. Thus, it would not just be illogical, but indeed a threat to America’s sovereignty and security to tolerate the UN’s self-serving assertion of immunity for that same UN-created subsidiary organization.62 Where the political branches speak with one voice in foreign affairs and national security, the ordinary rule is deference, not judicial improvisation; their coordinated action is “supported by the strongest of presumptions.”63 If courts nevertheless find UNRWA immune because of General Assembly-adopted one-country-one-vote resolutions, institutional habit, or abstract inference, the result will be a profound and essentially unacceptable transfer of authority from the elected branches of the United States. That authority would pass to an international body that was neither created nor understood to be a lawmaking institution.64 And it would occur in a case where the Government itself says UNRWA is: “UN in name only,” uniquely autonomous, not entitled to CPIUN immunity, outside the narrow class of entities Congress and the Executive have chosen to protect. It is, moreover, an entity that operates in practice under the effective control of a designated foreign terrorist organization.65 That is why these cases matter beyond UNRWA itself. They test whether the American political branches retain control over the domestic legal status and accountability of UN-linked entities that seek to invoke privileges in American courts for their own protective benefit, while operating with extraordinary functional autonomy without the accountability structure that is expected to govern such entities.66 The Executive need not stop at interpretation. If it wants to translate its public assessment of UNRWA into legal accountability, it should consider additional investigative, civil, and where warranted, criminal action. The mounting evidence now reportedly under review by U.S. officials warrants that scrutiny, including allegations involving more than 1,500 current or former UNRWA employees and the reported recent firing of 70 staffers following the U.S. foreign funding watchdog probe into UNRWA’s terror ties.67 59. U.S. Amicus, supra note 47, at 14-19 (arguing that if “subsidiary organ” is left purely to General Assembly labeling, the United States would be “beholden to award absolute immunity to whatever entity is able to pass a general vote of member states,” contrary to the U.S. understanding in ratifying the CPIUN). 60. Former Officials Br., supra note 57, at 4–9; see also Zivotofsky, supra note 56, at 20–21. 61. Former Officials Br., supra note 57, at 7. 62. Id. at 6–9; Sha’arabany Opposition, supra note 40, at 17-19. 63. Former Officials Br., supra note 57, at 9 (quoting Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Org., 606 U.S. 1, 19 (2025)); see also Dames & Moore v. Regan, 453 U.S. 654, 680, 686 (1981). 64. US Amicus, supra note 47, at 14-19; U.S. SOI, supra note 1 at 10-16. 65. Id. 66. US Amicus, supra note 47, at 19-20; U.S. SOI, supra note 1, at 11, 15-16. 67. Beth Bailey, “Trump Administration Probes UNRWA Over Alleged Employment of 1,500 Terrorists” FOX NEWS (July 13, 2026), available at https://www.foxnews.com/world/trump-administration-probes-unrwa-over-alleged-employment1500-terrorists; JNS Staff, “UNRWA Fires 70 Staffers After U.S. Watchdog Probe” JNS (July 13, 2026), available at https://www.jns.org/news/u-s-news/unrwa-fires-70-staffers-after-u-s-watchdog-probe-into-alleged-terror-ties-denieslink-to-findings
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