RealClearInvestigations Looks Into “Ghost Flights” of Illegal Immigrants.

The Department of Homeland Security finally responded to a Congressional request for information regarding the number of illegal migrants it has flown from border cities to areas around the country late last month, after months of delay. According to the report, 71,617 people were dropped off in roughly 20 cities in 2021, including Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia, which are all located close the Mexican border.

Immigration experts critical of the Biden administration’s permissive immigration policies believe those numbers are incomplete, especially regarding the most vulnerable migrants, those under 18, whom DHS classifies as “unaccompanied children.” The agency believes around 40,000 of the total transported are such minors, but that number is still a fraction of the 147,000 “encounters” the agency records having with unaccompanied migrant children at the southern border between January and October 2021.

What happens to the unaccompanied youngsters once they leave the airport is one of the most pressing concerns raised by the flights. According to experts, the major cities listed by the DHS are most likely just stopovers rather than final destinations.

Todd Bensman, a national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, said, “Everyone wants to know where they’re going, but nobody knows.” He continues, “Well, someone knows.” “The government is aware.” But they’re being as opaque and ‘darkened-windows’ about the whole thing as they possibly can.”

The absence of knowledge generates a slew of concerns about the children’s health and wellbeing, as well as other issues:

What security and background investigations are being carried out to guarantee that these youngsters are placed in safe homes? How can checks be carried out on relatives living in the United States unlawfully who end up taking custody of the children (a concern identified in a 2019 study)?

What procedures are in place to ensure that these children are getting enough to eat, that they are receiving any necessary medical attention, and that they are enrolled in school?

What kind of traumas or crimes have they experienced along the road, such as at the hands of human traffickers, and how are the cases being handled? (Judicial Watch got a list of 33 alleged sexual assault instances in a one-month period in 2021 through a public records request last year.)

What pandemic precautions have been taken by an administration that claims to be committed to eradicating COVID-19, beyond from the masks visible in some secretly shot photographs of the transportees? (According to preliminary findings of a DHS Inspector General’s study reviewed by RealClearInvestigations, illegal immigrants distributed on commercial aircraft in 2021 were not checked for covid, and agencies failed to follow preventive protocols.)

Who is responsible for ensuring that migrants, particularly children, register with the government and appear in court for immigration hearings?

Many state and local authorities are frustrated by the difficulty in getting answers from the Biden administration, who claim that tracking the thousands of illegal immigrants who appear to be blending into their communities is a tiresome task.

“The Biden administration is conducting a clandestine, secret, middle-of-the-night special ops mission,” said Larry Keefe, a senior policy adviser to Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. “We have no idea what’s going on because nations aren’t meant to conduct intelligence operations against our own government.”

The scenario is compounded by the multiple levels of interest. The government generally relies on nonprofit contractors to handle unaccompanied youngsters after a stew of federal agencies–CBP, DHS, DHHS, ICE, and ORR–handle them. While those organizations’ websites paint a rosy picture, it’s unclear how they’ll deal with the large rise.

According to DHS estimates, 122,000 unaccompanied children were admitted to shelters near the border and further inland in 2021, breaking the previous high of 69,000 in 2019. Unaccompanied minors make up a small percentage of the illegal immigrants that crossed the southern border in 2021. U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 1.6 million “encounters” in the fiscal year that ended in October, an all-time high and four times the previous year’s tally. Because CBP does not publicize the number of “got-aways” it records, the true figures are even higher, even though the number of interactions does not equal the number of persons who crossed.

However, because of the large increase in numbers, the institutions that deal with them are overburdened. In many circumstances, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, or ORR, subcontracts the task of matching unaccompanied children with families or sponsors. Taxpayers spent more than $1.5 billion in 2020, the most recent year for which figures are available, on 42 different non-profit and religious groups that help with housing, educational, medical, legal, and other services, thanks to the Trump administration’s far more restrictive immigration policies.

Six entities received more than $1 billion of the total for 2020. According to Maya Pagni Barak, a professor of criminology and criminal studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, who tracks ORR contracts, Southwest Key Programs earned $400 million and a global NGO called BCFS received at least $253.1 million.

None of the six organizations responded to RealClearInvestigations’ requests, instead forwarding them to federal agencies in a loop that has plagued others seeking information.

“This is all going on in the shadows, and no one really understands what’s going on,” said Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations at NumbersUSA, an anti-immigration group. “There’s also a lot of misunderstanding about who has custody of which groups.”

According to their websites, the organizations that deal with unaccompanied children have locations all around the United States. Southwest Key, for example, claims to operate shelters in 18 states, whereas BCFS mentions shelters in a dozen states, including California, New York, Colorado, Illinois, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, and elsewhere. According to an ICE fact sheet, there are sites for unaccompanied children in 22 states.

The operators’ complete silence beyond glowing internet portrayals of shelter conditions is not a new trend. Southwest Key refused to let Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) see their Casa Padre facility at a former Walmart in Brownsville, Texas, in 2018, when the Trump administration’s border practices were being scrutinized. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called the system “barbaric” at the time.

In an effort to shed light on the situation in Florida, Gov. DeSantis issued an executive order in September instructing state law enforcement and other officials to begin collecting data on the amount of illegal immigrants brought to the state by federal agencies and where they end up.

DeSantis took this action after criticizing Vice President Joe Biden of abandoning any pretense of border security.

DeSantis has proposed a package of measures that would codify the steps spelled out in his executive order, in response to what Keefe and other Florida officials described as persistent intransigence on the part of federal agencies flying and busing illegal immigrants into the Sunshine State. “Prohibit state and municipal agencies from doing business with any private entities that promote the resettlement of illegal aliens in the state of Florida from the southern border,” according to the proposed legislation.

In December, Florida’s Department of Children and Families issued an emergency regulation addressing the numerous non-profits and religious organizations that work with the federal government. Unless the state and federal agencies can come up with a “cooperative arrangement,” the rule “prohibits the granting or renewal of any license to provide services to UAC who wish to be relocated in Florida.”

The governor’s actions, according to Keefe, will also put a stop to people smuggling. Someone is paying to have the youngsters transported from their country of origin to the US border because they lack the necessary documents to board international flights from Central American airports and others. These are frequently criminal organizations funded by family members—with whom the children may be reunited in the future—or human trafficking syndicates acting as legal sponsors who may exploit them for nefarious purposes.

“We don’t have any laws that allow us to look into the federal government,” Keefe added. “Our own country is keeping us in the dark about something that is obviously helping to human smuggling since it is about bringing their children here.” Someone drops the babies off at the border, and then HHS passes the cost of flying them to illegal immigrant parents on to taxpayers.”

Pennsylvania legislators are in a similar predicament. Senators from the Keystone state are still waiting for information about flights carrying immigrants from the southern border that landed in the middle of the night in Scranton and other Pennsylvania airports.

There were at least two “ghost” flights into the Lehigh Valley in December, a small fraction of the more than 900 domestic or “lateral” trips that ICE’s aviation arm flew around the United States in 2021.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf and Attorney General Josh Shapiro, both Democrats, were questioned by Republican state senator Doug Mastriano and others. While Wolf claimed Scranton was just a stopover, he provided no information on passengers who arrived in the early morning darkness. The state legislators were urged to direct their questions to the feds, which was a typical refrain.

Mastriano has now filed a number of Freedom of Information Act requests with DHS and ICE, but he remains baffled and enraged by those involved in the system’s unwillingness to provide clear answers.

“There were 120 passengers on two planes from El Paso to Scranton, many of whom were adolescents,” Mastriano added. “Think about it. I’m not sure who pays for their education or what affect it has on our community, and there’s something suspicious about it all.”

Mastriano told RCI that the limited information presented is unlikely to provide a complete picture.

“These discoveries, in my opinion, are only the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “We need to look into the entire number of illegal immigrants arriving in the United States by plane and bus.” They’re not just sending youngsters to Pennsylvania; they’re also sending adults.”