The Biden administration is flying migrants from California, where border security has been tightened, to Texas, where Governor Greg Abbott’s tough border enforcement measures are preventing illegal entry into the state, The Washington Post reported.
Sources told The Post that last month, expensive Border Patrol charter flights on commercial planes were ferrying people across the border from San Diego to Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.
The weekly flight is estimated to cost $80,000 and is known to be “extremely expensive,” according to sources.
Photos also showed dozens of migrants being shackled by their ankles as they boarded a plane operated by a contractor in San Diego.
San Diego-area migrant detention facilities are overcrowded, reaching 150% of capacity, according to internal federal data recently obtained by The Washington Post, even after the Biden administration announced a new “crackdown” in June that allows the federal government to expedite the deportation of asylum seekers whose fears are not clearly justified.
San Diego border facilities do not have the operational capacity to handle the number of migrants entering the area, and the Biden administration’s new border policy has numerous loopholes that make it even more difficult to deport certain people who cross the border.
According to Border Patrol documents previously reported by The Washington Post, unaccompanied children, people with health issues and migrants from so-called “hard-to-remove” countries — such as those that don’t allow charter repatriation flights — can stay in the US.
Since the Biden administration’s restrictions on refugee admissions began June 6, the Border Patrol has transported roughly 400 migrants to areas of Texas’ Rio Grande Valley where planes land, according to internal federal data.
In the Lone Star State, restrictions enacted by Governor Abbott, including increased National Guard deployment and border barricades, have been effective in limiting the number of migrants crossing the border.
In one notable example, after the Texas Military was deployed to guard Shelby Park in Eagle Pass this spring, border crossings dropped from 2,000 to 3,000 people a day to about five, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS).
Meanwhile, San Diego was the number one location for illegal border crossings in April for the first time in 20 years, with 37,370 illegal crossings, according to NewsNation.
CBP officials told The Post that some of the new migrants arriving at the southern border who fall under exceptions to deportation will be “notified” of future court dates and released into the U.S. if detention facilities cannot accommodate them.
“Some people may not be able to be sent back to Mexico because we may not have a deal with them and it will take longer to send them back to their home countries,” the official said.
“However, since the presidential proclamation and interim final rule went into effect, the number of releases has fallen sharply,” the official added.
Migrants crossing into the San Diego area come from “all over the world,” a Border Patrol agent in the area recently told The Washington Post.
“There’s China, there’s India, there’s a lot of Indians, there’s a lot of them, and then there’s Central Americans,” the agent said.
More than 30,000 migrants were released into the country in June, according to internal data obtained by The Washington Post.
Between May and June, the number of migrants encountered by Border Patrol agents at the southern border fell from 117,901 to 83,536, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data.
CBP did not respond to The Washington Post’s request for comment.
