Lefty California teacher declares she married Gaza man to give him US citizenship: ‘Equalize the playing field’

A radical, Israel-hating California teacher claimed she married a Gaza resident online to help him gain American citizenship — and push her pro-Palestinian agenda.

Laura Pinho, a dance teacher at Canoga Park Senior High School in California, announced her nuptials in a wild June 16 CODEPINK Zoom webinar called “Challenging Zionism In Our Schools.”

When CODEPINK activist Marcy Winograd congratulated her on her marriage and asked her to share details about her life, Pinho, 51, launched into a pedantic monologue about how she only married Salem S.E. Abu Amra to advance “Palestinian rights and freedoms.”

“I have power as an American citizen. I have a passport that I was just born with, and how can I live in this world if I don’t make every effort to equalize the playing field on whatever way that I can,” she said in the webinar, first uncovered by the North American Values Institute.

Englewood New Jersey Mayor Michael Wildes — who is also an immigration attorney and former federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York — told The Post that Pinho is playing with fire.

“She can be prosecuted criminally, brought up on federal conspiracy charges. Marriage fraud is one of the top five crimes you can perpetrate including terrorism and drugs. The fact that somebody would be foolish enough to say they actually did it makes it actionable for the federal government to investigate,” Wildes said.

Marrying someone to obtain a green card is federal crime and can carry a five-year prison sentence and up to a $250,000 fine, according to the Department of Justice.

The odd couple tied the knot April 5 in Utah, which allows marriages to be conducted via Zoom, according to records posted online by the Utah County Clerk and obtained by Israeli nonprofit NGO Monitor. Utah allows virtual marriages in which both parties aren’t in the same location so long as they have secured a Utah County marriage license and provide valid ID and two witnesses, who also don’t have to be physically present in the state.

The bride has a 5-year-old child with Derek J. Reid, 51, an improv coach who also lives at her address, according to public records.

Reid told The Post that he and Pinho were domestic partners and never officially married, and that they’re currently separated and the two sleep in different rooms at the same address. He said he had no knowledge of her marriage to Abu Amra. 

He said their relationship dissolved partially over Israel — she left the church the two used to attend together over its stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“She’s been radicalized — I don’t know anything about that… the crowd she runs with… I’m worried for her,” Reid said.

She organized a GoFundMe for Abu Amra just the month before marrying him, in which she claimed he was the primary caregiver for a family of five.

“His days are spent securing clean water and foraging for food for his family and helping them stay alive,” Pinho asserted.

She claimed she first met her husband through mutual friends on Facebook and donated an undisclosed amount of money to him, and he proceeded to message her to say thanks.

It is unclear if Abu Amra has come to the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to The Post’s Request for comment.

Pinho heads her school’s Students for Justice in Palestine club and bragged about injecting her virulent anti-Israel politics into her dance curriculum.

She posted video from a school cultural event in which her students performed the “Dabke Dance” — a Palestinian folk dance that has come to be associated with terrorism.

“There is so much resistance in both the words and the movements of this song, so while I was instructing the students the actual steps of the dance, I would tell them the meaning, the significance of what the steps symbolized,” the lefty teacher said.

“Of course, that prompted the question, well, why are they so connected to the land… and then I was able, because they asked the question, to share the history of what has happened to their land,” she added.

Pinho, whose school is part of the Los Angeles Unified School District, made $179,103 in pay and benefits as of 2024, according to public records.

She boasts that she steered her students into radical anti-Israel protests.

“Students have rights, powers and abilities. . . . they do the fighting, they do the protesting, and we are there to guide them. . . . that is the role that I have found as one of the co-sponsors actually for the Students for Justice in Palestine Club,” she said.

Pinho has a long history of antisemitic posts on social media.

In December 2025, she posted an image that stated that Israel was created by “Satanic bankers” and that voiced neo-Nazi conspiracy theories that modern-day Jews are descended from Khazars, a nomadic Turkish tribe, not ancient Israelites.

In February, she posted an image of conspiratorial podcaster Candace Owens — who claimed that Jews kill Christians on Passover — with a quote attributed to her saying that America is ruled by “Satanic pedophiles who work for Israel.

“And she’s wrong how??” Pinho captioned the image.

The newlyweds apparently have something in common, Abu Amra posted an image on Facebook valorizing a Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist.

“Parents should be alarmed by this teacher’s judgment,” NAVI Research Director Mika Hackner said.

Pinho and the Los Angeles Unified School District didn’t return requests for comment.