The Biden administration is moving forward with plans to offer migrants “humanitarian” commercial flights to dozens of U.S. airports, with migrants who would otherwise be at risk being flown to the U.S. from some of the world’s wealthiest countries.
Under the Biden administration’s CHNV program, migrants are flying in from wealthy European countries such as France and Germany, as well as popular resort destinations such as the Bahamas and Jamaica, according to data obtained by the Center for Migration Studies (CIS).
The CHNV program, which will allow migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to fly directly on commercial flights to dozens of U.S. airports, will begin in 2022 and was created to provide nationals of those countries and their families with shelter in the United States for “urgent humanitarian reasons.”
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President Biden (Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
According to the CIS report, the program has flown more than 460,000 migrants to the United States, where they have been released on temporary humanitarian parole, renewable for two years, and given work authorization. Migrants also appear to be using the time to apply for asylum, although the CIS report noted that migrants are not required to file an asylum application.
But the list of departure countries casts doubt on claims that the migrants are in any immediate danger. In addition to Germany and France, migrants also flew to the US from Australia, Iceland, Fiji, Greece, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Other popular holiday destinations include the Caribbean, Barbados, Martinique, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
In total, migrants from 77 countries, including Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, were flown to an undisclosed U.S. airport.
Rows of sunbeds and coconut palms in Nassau, Bahamas. (EyesWideOpen/Getty Images)
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“This data is evidence that the parole system is not being used to help aliens escape safely, but rather as a secondary immigration system not authorized by Congress,” Elizabeth Jacobs, director of regulatory affairs at the Center for Migration Studies, said of the findings. “The Biden administration is likely paroling aliens who are already ‘well established’ in safe and orderly countries, yet still receiving benefits under the guise of urgent humanitarian reasons or vital public interest.”
Still, the administration has called the program a humanitarian success and argued that it has a “significant public benefit,” noting that the flights make migrants less likely to try to cross the southern border.
But CIS noted that some source countries question whether migrants would have shown up at the U.S. border without the program, arguing instead that the migrants may have already been resettled in other, safer countries but later chose to go to the U.S.
A commercial aircraft approaches Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
“This information tells us that these people are certainly being resettled, and that if they need to seek protection, they can do so in their country of residence,” CIS researcher and former immigration judge Andrew Arthur said of the data. “If they’re coming from a country other than Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua or Venezuela, they’re simply disembarking in a top country from their country of origin, a third country. This literally has nothing to do with an asylum claim or anything else.”
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The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
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