Biden Administration Acknowledges Secret Program Flying Illegal Migrants into U.S.

Immigrants into the United States are a touchy subject, no matter which side of the aisle you fall on. Conservatives believe that the ongoing border crisis necessarily is a comment on the types of people who are seeking to come into the country. Liberals don’t ascribe to this idea, but that doesn’t mean that migrants are far from the national conversation for Democrats.

Democrats at the Center of the Crisis

Indeed, in some ways it seems that immigration has been raised as a topic more often lately for Democratic regions and states. California and Governor Newsom have both been heavily scrutinized for ongoing issues at the border with Mexico, much to Republican’s delight.

Other states that have painted themselves as “sanctuary” states for individuals who are attempting to immigrate are starting to report some issues. The crisis at the southern border means that more people than ever are trying to come into the United States from Mexico and other countries, and many cities do not have the infrastructure to support such an intense influx of citizens.

Ongoing Rumors Around the Biden Administration’s Priorities

Despite this, there have been ongoing rumors surrounding Joe Biden and what his administration is seeking to do around the immigration crisis. It’s true that the formal stance of the administration is to address immigration with policies that are harsher than those currently in place, but what about what is being done behind the scenes?

Rumors of various flights that have been charted by the administration and arranged for migrants in different foreign ports have been flying for some time. Though many people suspected, there was little actual proof behind the suspicion that would cause average Americans to look a little closer at the actions of the administration.

A Statement by Border Protection

A recent statement made by both Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as well as immigration and border patrol agents makes those suspicions stark reality. Lawyers for President Biden’s administration agencies released a statement in response to questions in a recent development.

The statement read that disclosing the locations of secret migrant flights would open potential vulnerabilities for a United States immigration program. The program allegedly spent a good amount of time last year secretly chartering flights of thousands of undocumented immigrants directly into U.S. cities, though border protection agents refused to release more information on the program than that.

A Stunning Admission

The admission on the part of border patrol agents is stunning in its entirety, though they didn’t reveal significant details about the program.

The fact that the Biden administration has been allegedly transporting illegal migrants into the country in the face of the ongoing crisis at the border is stunning. These individuals have no legal rights to any sort of status in the United States, meaning that, if it’s true, the program is the result of the Biden administration outwardly flaunting the laws that they’ve sworn to protect.

Not the First Immigration Controversy

The information about these alleged chartered flights comes off the back of other controversy around a transportation program for migrants. In 2022, the administration was heavily criticized for using taxpayer funds to overnight flights of migrants throughout the country.

This new revelation is in a similar vein. According to information revealed through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the Biden administration allegedly approved secretive flights that transportant hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from foreign countries into at least 43 different American airports during 2023.

An Expansion of a Border Protection Program

The flights were allegedly an expansion of the Biden administration’s Customs and Border Patrol One app, a cell phone program that kicked off at the beginning of last year.

Under the expansion of this program, Migrants were able to apply for asylum using a cell phone app called CBP One from their home countries. This allowed for a slightly smoother transition into applying for asylum for those who qualify, and the app also allowed for the transportation of these migrants directly into the United States.

Attempting to Improve Current Systems

The use of the app for asylum seekers was meant to improve the current asylum program in America. By law, individuals must be physically in the United States in order to apply for asylum, but for many people, this is simply too dangerous of a task to achieve.

The app allows for migrants who cannot legally enter the U.S. to use the app to apply for both travel authorization and temporary humanitarian release from participating airports. This temporary release would allow for migrants to stay in the United States for several years with work authorization while working through the immigration process to either apply for asylum or long-term stays.

Lack of Transparency

Though the administration was more transparent about this program than it had been in the past, officials still refused to reveal which airports the undocumented aliens were transported to.

Originally, the reasoning behind withholding the information was cited as a “law enforcement exception,” which allowed for officers of the government to keep the information classified due to their government status. However, later information from the CIS lawsuit reveals that the locations were kept quiet out of fear of “bad actors” who would inflict harm on public safety.

An Ongoing Concern About Safety

CBP lawyers elaborated on this suspicion in a filing with the courts. “Air ports of entry, which, if disclosed, would reveal information about the relative number of individuals arriving, and thus resources expended at particular airports,” the briefing stated.

It concluded, “This would, either standing alone or combined with other information, reveal operational vulnerabilities that could be exploited by bad actors altering their patterns of conduct, adopting new methods of operation, and taking other countermeasures.”

In Efforts to Secure the Border

The filing added that this method of sabotage could “thereby undermine CBP’s law enforcement efforts to secure the United States borders.” Keeping the locations quiet was, therefore, a strategic move to keep the border more secure and enforce CBP’s efforts at maintaining national security.

This statement and lawsuit comes as Republicans in Congress have repeatedly stated that the border of the United States is not secure, and that the border crisis is one of the most existential threats that has faced the country in the last several decades.

The Program is on Thin Ice

In the wake of this new information about the CBP One program, CIS’s lawsuit points out that the secretive flights of immigrants within the country are “legally dubious,” at best. The lawsuit claims that, since CBP will not disclose the locations of these transportation spots due to fear of “grave consequences,” the program should likely not be continued.

This statement was compounded by the fact that lawyers for the government also wouldn’t disclose exactly where these migrants were coming from. Without information of where these individuals originated or where they were ultimately being placed, the CBP One program is on thin legal ice, with every possibility that it will be discontinued.

Republicans Calling for Action

This lawsuit and new information regarding the border comes as Republicans are calling for President Biden to do more regarding the immigration crisis. While Biden has long held that Congress is responsible for passing legislation regarding the border, Republicans believe that the president can do more.

Whether that is true remains to be seen. Preliminary drafts of executive orders regarding border security have been released in the aftermath of a bipartisan immigration bill that failed to make it through the House of Representatives. It’s currently unclear the legality of some of the choices the administration might make, or whether they’ll ultimately make them at all.

Adjustments Need to be Made

The CBP One program may be in jeopardy due to lack of disclosure on the part of the government, but as more information is revealed regarding the program, that may ultimately not be a bad thing. While the idea behind the program is noble, the flaws of secrecy cannot be overlooked.

If the security risks behind disclosure can be addressed, the program is one that could make the asylum and immigration process smoother for many individuals who are not currently in the United States. Addressing the risks and concerns will be a challenge, but it may be one that the administration is willing to tackle in order to make progress on the border crisis, once and for all.