A Biden administration program to offer migrants “humanitarian” commercial flights directly to dozens of American airports has seen supposedly endangered migrants fly to the U.S. from some of the world’s richest countries.
Migrants are being flown in from rich European countries such as France and Germany and vacation hot spots like the Bahamas and Jamaica under the Biden administration’s CHNV Program, according to data obtained by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).
The CHNV Program, which allows migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to fly commercially directly to dozens of U.S. airports, was launched in 2022 and was created to give nationals from those countries and their family members sanctuary in the U.S. for “urgent humanitarian reasons.”
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President Biden (Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The program has led to over 460,000 migrants being flown to the U.S., according to the CIS report, with the migrants being released on temporary humanitarian parole for renewable two-year periods and given work permits. The migrants are also assumed to be using that time to apply for asylum, though the CIS report notes they are not required to submit an asylum application.
But the list of departure countries used casts doubt on claims that the migrants are in any sort of urgent danger. In addition to Germany and France, migrants have flown to the U.S. from Australia, Iceland, Fiji, Greece, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Other popular vacation hot spots include the Caribbean, Barbados, Martinique, St. Lucia. St. Kitts, Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
In all, migrants have been flown to undisclosed U.S. airports from 77 countries, a list that also included Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Rows of sunbeds and coconut palm trees in Nassau, the Bahamas. (EyesWideOpen/Getty Image)
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“I would say this data is evidence that the parole program is not being used to help aliens flee to safety but, rather, as a secondary immigration system that has not been authorized by Congress,” Elizabeth Jacobs, the director of regulatory affairs for the Center for Immigration Studies, said of the findings. “The Biden administration is likely paroling in aliens who are already ‘firmly resettled’ in safe and orderly countries but are nevertheless benefiting under the guise of urgent humanitarian or significant public benefit reasons.”
Nevertheless, the administration has defended the program as a humanitarian success and also argued there is a “significant public benefit” from the program, noting that the flights make it less likely for the migrants to attempt crossings at the southern border.
But CIS notes that some of the departure countries call into question whether a migrant would have shown up at the U.S. border at all if not for the program, instead arguing that it is possible the migrants had already resettled in other, safer countries but later chose to go to the United States.
A commercial airliner approaches Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
“This information suggests that these people are firmly resettled and if they need to seek protection, then they can seek it in the countries they’re living in,” Andrew Arthur, a CIS fellow and former immigration judge, said of the data. “If they are coming from anyplace other than Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, they’re simply trading up from the third country that they’re coming from. This literally has nothing to do with asylum claims or anything else.”
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