The Biden administration pressured at least 11 American airports to house illegal immigrants despite security warnings, a shocking new Senate report revealed Tuesday.
The Biden White House directed the Department of Transportation (DOT), Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to identify airports where illegal migrants could be held and processed, according to Fox News, citing the 47-page report, entitled “Flight Risk.” In some instances, the Biden administration asked federal agencies to “divert … resources” to support the illegal migrants.
“The Biden-Harris administration made airports and aviation less secure,” the report states, “by allowing and encouraging aliens to shelter at U.S. airports, by allowing improperly vetted aliens to fly into and throughout the United States, and by diverting needed federal air marshals to the border.”
Officials tasked with the effort, however, weren’t shy about their concerns, internal emails showed.
“We have received a request from the WH to determine if there are available facilities on airport or surrounding areas… This is an immediate ask so please prioritize this effort,” one FAA official wrote to the Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs Boston Logan Airport, on October 6, 2023.
A Department of Transportation official responded: “Yikes, this is definitely Fox News fodder in the making.”
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FAA officials recognized they needed federal approval to house migrants in terminals and other airport facilities under grant-assurance rules, but “ignored them most of the time when airports used their facilities to house aliens,” the report stated.
The airport authority also pushed back on the request, saying they’re “not designed or resourced to manage the intake of migrant populations,” adding that it “would create a host of unintended safety and security consequences.”
Still, the Boston airport accommodated 352 migrants, shelling out $779,000 on security, cleaning, and transportation.
The targeted airports included Boston Logan, Chicago O’Hare, and New York’s JFK. And they were asked to shelter migrants inside terminals, hangars, or auxiliary buildings.
In Chicago, O’Hare Airport hosted up to 900 migrants, housing them in a shuttle terminal.
The effort resulted in 329 service calls to police and 26 arrests between April 2023 and February 2024 for crimes that included thefts, disorderly conduct, and a death investigation.
The “asylum seekers [we]re not restricted to the staging area,” Chicago officials said at the time.
At JFK airport, the migrant issue resulted in a security breach, after Kleber Loor-Ponce, “an alien from Ecuador… ran past a security post into ‘the secure area at [JFK],’ toward two runways.”
When he was arrested, officers “found a box cutter and pair of scissors on his person.”
Department of Transportation officials were also instructed to step in, with some told to create a “Know Your Rights” guide for migrants while working with states that track buses delivering border crossers across the country.
Some officials were also “encouraged to remind local transit agencies that federal grants could be used to move migrants.”
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