Congress reveals Joe Biden’s secret list of destination airports for illegal immigrants

The House Homeland Security Committee published the list of airports involved in President Biden’s migrant airlift, which is helping hundreds of thousands of unauthorized migrants skip over the border and fly directly into American communities.

Florida airports top the list with Miami and Fort Lauderdale receiving more than 150,000 arrivals between January and August of last year.

New York was third, Houston fourth and another Florida location, Orlando, fifth.

All told, there were more than cities on the list, including several Canadian locations, the Bahamas, Aruba and Ireland.

The list had been a guarded secret, but the committee pried them loose at the point of a subpoena.

“These documents expose the egregious lengths Secretary Mayorkas will go to ensure inadmissible aliens reach every corner of the country, from Orlando and Atlanta to Las Vegas and San Francisco,” said Rep. Mark Green, chairman of the committee, referring to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

More than 400,000 unauthorized migrants have been welcomed into the U.S. through what the government calls its Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela program, or CHNV.

Mr. Mayorkas created the program after watching illegal immigrants from those nations pour into the U.S. in late 2022. He created a program using his “parole” power to let them pre-apply for entry and fly directly into airports, despite lacking a visa to do so.

The result has been to convert the illegal flow at the border to the interior.

Parole lasts for two years, though Mr. Mayorkas has shown an inclination to allow migrants to apply to renew their status.

Those who come are supposed to have proved that they have a financial supporter and won’t end up depending on government assistance, though The Washington Times has reported that people are selling those financial certifications for $5,000 in Central America, and there have been some high-profile cases of parolees who were living in government-run shelters.

The CHNV program allows the migrants to put down roots, such as obtaining work permits and some taxpayer benefits, making them difficult to deport if a future administration were to take a more strict approach to immigration enforcement.

Homeland Security says those involved have “arrived lawfully.”

But Mr. Green said the program violates the law, which reserves parole for rare instances where it’s deemed a “significant” public benefit to the U.S. or where there is an “urgent” humanitarian reason to admit someone.

“Secretary Mayorkas’ CHNV parole program is an unlawful sleight of hand used to hide the worsening border crisis from the American people,” the Tennessee Republican said.

The House committee said that there were 1.6 million foreign nationals awaiting approval to come through the program as of October. Mr. Mayorkas capped arrivals at 30,000 arrivals a month.

That’s in addition to parolees who arrive in a special program for Ukraine, and another parole program for migrants who show up at the southern border and pre-schedule their visa-less arrivals.

According to the committee’s list, Miami received 91,821 CHNV arrivals from January to August 2023. Ft. Lauderdale got 60,461, New York got 14,827, Houston got 7,923 and Orlando got 6,043.

Los Angeles received 3,271; Tampa, Florida, got 3,237; Dallas received 2,256; San Francisco got 2,052; Atlanta got 1,796;  Newark, New Jersey, got 1,498; Washington, D.C., received 1,472; Chicago got 496; Las Vegas received 483 and Austin, Texas, got 171.

Other receiving cities on the list the Homeland Security Committee released were: