by Jason Hopkins
Nearly 200,000 migrants from four countries have flown into America’s biggest airports under a Biden administration parole program, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) documents reveal.
The House Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday publicized documents, obtained through a subpoena to DHS, that identifies over 50 airport locations used by the federal government to process hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals via a parole program between January-August 2023. About 200,000 foreign nationals were processed under the program — known as the Humanitarian Parole for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, or CHNV — which was initially launched in October 2022 and grants a two-year parole period as well as work authorization eligibility.
Of the top 15 airport locations used for the parole program, Florida cities stood out as a major destination of choice for those flying into a port of entry between the January-August 2023 time period.
Miami was the top destination, with 91,821 people. Ft. Lauderdale, Florida was second with 60,461. New York City came in at third with 14,827. The other destinations rounding off the top 10 were Houston: 7,923; Orlando: 6,043: Los Angeles: 3,271; Tampa: 3237; Dallas: 2,256; San Francisco: 2,052; and Atlanta: 1,796.
The flight documents were shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation and first reported by Fox News.
CHNV Monthly flight data. Courtesy of the House Homeland Security Committee.
“In the documents, DHS further admits that none of these individuals have a legal basis to enter the country before being paroled through the program, stating, ‘All individuals paroled into the United States are, by definition, inadmissible, including those paroled under the CHNV Processes,'” according to a press release from the House Homeland Security Committee.
So far, over 400,000 foreign nationals have arrived into the U.S. under the CHNV program. As of October 2023, roughly 1.6 million foreign nationals have applied to the program, according to the Homeland Security Committee.
The documents unearthed by the committee shed more light on where exactly these migrants have landed.
“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. Secretary Mayorkas’ CHNV parole program is an unlawful sleight of hand used to hide the worsening border crisis from the American people,” said GOP Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.
“Implementing a program that allows otherwise inadmissible aliens to fly directly into the U.S. — not for significant public benefit or urgent humanitarian reasons as the Immigration and Nationality Act mandates — has been proven an impeachable offense,” Green continued.
Republicans previously waged a lawsuit to block the parole program, but that effort was ultimately blocked by a federal judge in March.
At least six million migrant encounters have occurred at the southern border since President Joe Biden assumed office in 2021, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data reveal. During this time, his administration has shuttered a number of enforcement measures that were widely implemented under the Trump White House, such as Remain in Mexico and Title 42.
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
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Jason Hopkins is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Flight Passengers” by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
