Republicans seek to unveil Biden’s transport of 400,000 ‘unvetted’ migrants

EXCLUSIVE — House Republicans are upping the pressure for the Biden administration to disclose the extent to which it has allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants to bypass the southern border and fly directly into the United States from abroad.

Missouri lawmakers in the House sent Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas a letter Thursday requesting details on the approximately 400,000 non-U.S. citizens the Biden administration has used the parole process on to wave foreigners into the country.

“Despite allowing over 10 million illegal crossings at our southern border, the President is still finding new ways to bring foreign nationals into our country,” Rep. Mark Alford (R-MO) said. “President Biden has ignored the rule of law and allowed almost half a million individuals to fly directly into the United States.”

In early 2023, the Department of Homeland Security announced it was expanding U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s phone app, CBP One, to include a new feature that allowed up to 30,000 migrants from four countries with authoritarian governments — Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela — to fly into the U.S. for inspection, and they could then possibly be paroled into the country. The initiative is known as the CHNV program.

Through the program, residents from those countries request “advance travel authorization” through the CBP One mobile app to take commercial flights “at their own expense” directly to U.S. airports. The app itself does not grant parole.

Citizens of those four countries who are applying from abroad to fly into the U.S. for an appointment with customs at the airport must have a sponsor in the country willing to support them financially, undergo security vetting, prove they can pay for a plane ticket to a U.S. airport, be vaccinated for measles, polio, and the coronavirus, and travel within 90 days.

But Republicans raised concerns from the get-go that the move was a roundabout way to lower illegal immigration numbers by allowing otherwise inadmissible migrants into the country, hidden in plain sight at airports nationwide.

A recent Fox News report on airport arrivals in the first eight months after its rollout revealed that migrants using the program have flown into 45 U.S. airports, largely ones in South Florida. Flights have also arrived in Missouri, raising the lawmakers’ concerns.

Once in the U.S., a CBP officer will determine whether the immigrant should be granted parole and given permission to reside in the U.S. for two years if he or she meets “urgent humanitarian or significant public benefit reasons.” The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 does not specify what “urgent humanitarian” or “significant public benefit” can include or not include.

The six GOP lawmakers — Reps. Ann Wagner, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Sam Graves, Eric Burlison, Jason Smith, and Alford — told Mayorkas in the letter that the DHS has gone “far beyond” its authority as outlined in the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act.

“The Biden Administration has abused this authority to grant mass parole to foreign nationals based on state of origin, blatantly ignoring the law’s case-by-case basis provision,” the letter stated. “The INA explicitly states that granting parole does not change an individual’s immigration status, and that the individual must be returned to their home country and that their case shall ‘continue to be dealt with in the same manner as that of any other applicant for admission to the United States.’”

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Lawmakers asked for the DHS to provide by the end of May how the government is tracking the 400,000 migrants admitted through the CHNV program and how it plans to ensure each migrant is removed from the U.S. since parole is only intended to last for two years.

The Biden administration has maintained that the CHNV initiative is a lawful use of parole authority and that it has deterred migrants from paying criminal organizations to smuggle them over the southern border.