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Great Reset

Many Migrants in Biden’s ‘Humanitarian’ Flights Scheme Coming in from Safe Countries and Vacation Wonderlands

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By Todd Bensman as published June 17, 2024 by the Center for Immigration Studies

In late 2022 and early 2023, President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security launched one of the most unusual humanitarian programs in U.S. immigration history: it unilaterally began authorizing inadmissible Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (thus the shorthand name CHNV Program) and their immediate family members to fly commercially from foreign countries into more than 40 American airports.

The administration has used this legally dubious program to authorize more than 460,000 ostensibly endangered nationals of those four countries to fly directly from undisclosed airports abroad into some 45 U.S. airports from October 2022 through May 2024. They are then released on temporary humanitarian parole of renewable two-year periods with work permits, during which time they are assumed (but not required) to be applying for asylum.

From this massive “rescue” program’s inception, the Biden administration has claimed that its purpose was to provide temporary U.S. sanctuary “for urgent humanitarian reasons” for those facing persecution in their native countries, and thus reduce the incentive to pass through Mexico on “dangerous routes that pose serious risks to migrant’s lives and safety” on their way to illegally cross the U.S. border.

But new information that the Center for Immigration Studies has forced from the government through litigation now reveals that, while all participants are nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, or Venezuela, many are flying to the United States from 73 other nations. (See the list of countries provided by DHS here.)

The departure country list casts serious doubt on whether the Biden administration has used the humanitarian rescue flights program as it was sold to the American public. In fact, the new departure country information shows that many migrants from these four nationalities have been heading to the U.S. from some of the safest, most prosperous nations on Earth, some heralded worldwide as vacation wonderlands. They could not have been suffering urgent humanitarian problems there, nor were they anywhere near dangerous migration trails.

Economic Giants and Vacation Hotspots

CHNV nationals are flying to the U.S. from Iceland and from Fiji and from Greece.

They are flying from the wealthy European Union countries of France and Germany, from Finland and Norway, from the Netherlands and Switzerland, and from Sweden and Italy. They are flying from Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. Presumably, many Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans have reached these countries to settle and work.

The government’s list of 77 departure countries shows that, yes, ostensibly rescue-worthy Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans are indeed flying in from their own troubled countries to take their U.S. humanitarian protection, as most observers would presume.

But they are also getting authorizations to fly from beautiful Caribbean vacation hotspots like Barbados, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Martinique, St. Lucia. St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The publicly stated purposes of the CHNV program, also called the Advanced Travel Authorization (ATA) program, are at odds with the reality that many are departing from models of prosperous stability and safety, whose own residents could never possibly qualify for U.S. humanitarian protection, nor would ask for it.

“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,” said Elizabeth Jacobs, Director of Regulatory Affairs for the Center for Immigration Studies, who served as Senior Advisor in the Office of the Chief Counsel for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

“The Biden administration is likely paroling in aliens who are already ‘firmly resettled’ in safe and orderly countries but are nevertheless benefitting under the guise of urgent humanitarian or significant public benefit reasons,” Jacobs said.

Withholding the true purpose of a major government program in this way is a serious disservice to the American public, she added.

“Congress delegated DHS limited authority to use parole only for urgent humanitarian or significant public benefit reasons,” Jacobs said. “Misleading the public on the administration’s use of parole prevents voters from understanding the real impact of the administration’s policies and may prevent voters from holding the administration accountable for their abuse of the nation’s immigration laws.”

Managing Border Disorder or an Unauthorized Admissions Program?

In addition to humanitarian rescues, the government also cited a “significant public benefit” to the United States for its foreign flights program, that inadmissible aliens authorized to fly over the border into the U.S. would be less likely to illegally cross the southern border, thus lessening the chaos there.

But never disclosed until now is that the Biden DHS is also authorizing untold numbers to depart on U.S.-bound flights from many safe countries so far away from the U.S. border and Latin America that beneficiaries would never need to march the dangerous trails and crowd the U.S. border.

Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians, and Venezuelans the U.S. government has cleared for departure are flying in from far-flung prosperous, low crime countries nowhere near the migrant trails of Latin America or the southern border, like South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

Some are departing from Israel. Before the war with Hamas.

They are flying from Australia.

And from the oil-rich states of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

The government is authorizing some number to fly in from African nations like South Africa, Morocco, and Senegal. Were any of these threatening to add their number to the southern border’s congestion?

Even Vietnam is on the departure country list.

Dispersed Around the World

Immigrants from all four nations apparently have dispersed all over the world seeking work and improved lifestyles. Perhaps things weren’t working out so well in adoptive countries when the Biden administration threw them a lifeline in the flights program. Europe is a good example.

For several years now, thousands of Cubans have flocked to illegally cross the European Union’s external borders, claiming asylum while seeking to work just as they have in the United States. Many have entered the Balkan countries through Serbia or Greece, popular illegal immigration portals of late, seeking eventual resettlement in Spain, Germany, France and elsewhere. While Greece has cracked down somewhat with reported pushbacks of illegal immigrants to Turkey, plenty of Cubans have found long-term residence in other European countries like Italy.

Venezuelans made up about 6 percent of all EU asylum applications in 2023, amounting to about 60,000, mostly in Spain. Unlike the Cubans, Venezuelans can fly to Europe visa-free for tourism and probably need not have crossed borders illegally for their asylum claims. Nicaraguans also have been known to head for Europe in increasing numbers since 2018.

While Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans are rarely deported from the safety and social welfare systems of Europe, perhaps some of them saw surer economic or family reunification prospects when the Biden DHS launched its flights program and decided on a lifestyle upgrade by coming to the United States.

“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,” said Andrew Arthur, a Center fellow and former immigration judge. “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.”

The Government’s Fight for Secrecy

The CBP public affairs office did not respond to the Center’s emailed questions asking for an explanation about the surprising diversity of those rescued from often safe and prosperous departure nations. The cold shoulder is no surprise.

The obvious Grand Canyon between the administration’s public justifications for its humanitarian flights program and what it is really doing might explain why the Biden government has fought hard in court to keep the list of departure nations under wraps.

For more than a year, CBP has refused to comply with a Center for Immigration Studies Freedom of Information Act request to name them. CBP lawyers were so steadfastly opposed to their release that they forced the Center into a long and tedious lawsuit. The effort has finally produced only the names of departure countries but little else the Center requested, such as the specific departure airports and the numbers of people leaving each for American airports.

Government lawyers gave the list of 77 countries but refused during settlement negotiations with the Center to provide even a list in rank order of departure volume. In the end, the agency would only agree to disclose the 77 countries in alphabetical order.

The administration was equally secretive about which U.S. airports were receiving the immigrants, and has never agreed to release them to date, although the Center was eventually able to divine that most were flying into Florida. (See “The Florida Gateway: Data Shows Most Migrant Flights Landing in Gov. DeSantis’s Sunshine State”.) The House Homeland Security Committee, which obtained the airport locations by subpoena, later released the information.

Colin Farnsworth, the Center’s Chief FOIA Counsel, said the litigation is now settled and no more information will be forthcoming. He explained, “Although the government had no legitimate claims for withholding the foreign airports the participants of the ATA program were flying from, and their respective departure volumes, CIS determined it was in the public’s interest to quickly obtain the list of related foreign countries by settling the lawsuit, instead of allowing the government to extensively delay the release of any records through a lengthy legal process.”

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armed forces

Yet another struggling soldier says Veteran Affairs Canada offered him euthanasia

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From LifeSiteNews

By Jonathon Van Maren

‘It made me wonder, were they really there to help us, or slowly groom us to say ‘here’s a solution, just kill yourself.’

Yet another Canadian combat veteran has come forward to reveal that when he sought help, he was instead offered euthanasia. 

David Baltzer, who served two tours in Afghanistan with the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, revealed to the Toronto Sun that he was offered euthanasia on December 23, 2019—making him, as the Sun noted, “among the first Canadian soldiers offered therapeutic suicide by the federal government.”

Baltzer had been having a disagreement with his existing caseworker, when assisted suicide was brought up in in call with a different agent from Veteran Affairs Canada.  

“It made me wonder, were they really there to help us, or slowly groom us to say ‘here’s a solution, just kill yourself,” Baltzer told the Sun.“I was in my lowest down point, it was just before Christmas. He says to me, ‘I would like to make a suggestion for you. Keep an open mind, think about it, you’ve tried all this and nothing seems to be working, but have you thought about medical-assisted suicide?’” 

Baltzer was stunned. “It just seems to me that they just want us to be like ‘f–k this, I give up, this sucks, I’d rather just take my own life,’” he said. “That’s how I honestly felt.” 

Baltzer, who is from St. Catharines, Ontario, joined up at age 17, and moved to Manitoba to join the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, one of Canada’s elite units. He headed to Afghanistan in 2006. The Sun noted that he “was among Canada’s first troops deployed to Afghanistan as part Operation Athena, where he served two tours and saw plenty of combat.” 

“We went out on long-range patrols trying to find the Taliban, and that’s exactly what we did,” Baltzer said. “The best way I can describe it, it was like Black Hawk Down — all of the sudden the s–t hit the fan and I was like ‘wow, we’re fighting, who would have thought? Canada hasn’t fought like this since the Korean War.” 

After returning from Afghanistan, Baltzer says he was offered counselling by Veteran Affairs Canada, but it “was of little help,” and he began to self-medicate for his trauma through substance abuse (he noted that he is, thankfully, doing well today). Baltzer’s story is part of a growing scandal. As the Sun reported:  

A key figure shedding light on the VAC MAID scandal was CAF veteran Mark Meincke, whose trauma-recovery podcast Operation Tango Romeo broke the story. ‘Veterans, especially combat veterans, usually don’t reach out for help until like a year longer than they should’ve,’ Meincke said, telling the Sun he waited over two decades before seeking help. 

‘We’re desperate by the time we put our hands up for help. Offering MAID is like throwing a cinderblock instead of a life preserver.’ Meincke said Baltzer’s story shoots down VAC’s assertions blaming one caseworker for offering MAID to veterans, and suggests the problem is far more serious than some rogue public servant. 

‘It had to have been policy. because it’s just too many people in too many provinces,” Meincke told the Sun. “Every province has service agents from that province.’

Veterans Affairs Canada claimed in 2022 that between four and 20 veterans had been offered assisted suicide; Meincke “personally knows of five, and said the actual number’s likely close to 20.” In a previous investigation, VAC claimed that only one caseworker was responsible—at least for the four confirmed cases—and that the person “was lo longer employed with VAC.” Baltzer says VAC should have military vets as caseworkers, rather than civilians who can’t understand what vets have been through. 

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Jonathon’s writings have been translated into more than six languages and in addition to LifeSiteNews, has been published in the National PostNational ReviewFirst Things, The Federalist, The American Conservative, The Stream, the Jewish Independent, the Hamilton SpectatorReformed Perspective Magazine, and LifeNews, among others. He is a contributing editor to The European Conservative.

His insights have been featured on CTV, Global News, and the CBC, as well as over twenty radio stations. He regularly speaks on a variety of social issues at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions in Canada, the United States, and Europe.

He is the author of The Culture WarSeeing is Believing: Why Our Culture Must Face the Victims of AbortionPatriots: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Pro-Life MovementPrairie Lion: The Life and Times of Ted Byfield, and co-author of A Guide to Discussing Assisted Suicide with Blaise Alleyne.

Jonathon serves as the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

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2025 Federal Election

Carney Liberals pledge to follow ‘gender-based goals analysis’ in all government policy

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

‘We will continue to update the GBA+ tool to ensure it reflects the identities and values of all Canadians, including diversity as a core value.’

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party is promising to effectively mandate that all government policies and initiatives be measured using “Gender Based Analyses” before being approved and implemented.

The Liberal’s “Canada Strong” election platform, under the Gender Based Analyses (GBA) tab, pledges to “ensure that every measure in this platform will be implemented with a full GBA+ analysis – so that we can continue to build Canada strong, for all Canadians.”

“A Mark Carney-led government will support and champion all Canadians, including by reviewing policies and programs using an intersectional lens. We will continue to update the GBA+ tool to ensure it reflects the identities and values of all Canadians, including diversity as a core value.”

The GBA tab also mentions “2SLGBTQI+ people” four times, three of which are related to funding promises.

It notes that a Carney-led government would protect “the values” the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was “founded on – which are under threat – and ensuring the protection of women, people with disabilities, racialized and Indigenous communities, and 2SLGBTQI+ people.”

Carney already stated his government would provide sterilizing puberty blockers to children “without exception,” calling harmful “transitioning” surgeries and chemical “treatments” a “fundamental right.”

While campaigning to become Liberal Party leader, Carney had also promised that his government would pursue an agenda of “inclusiveness” to counter U.S. President Donald Trump’s more socially conservative agenda.

His promise to promote “inclusiveness” in Canada in opposition to Trump’s agenda came only days after former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government promised an extra $41.5 million in taxpayer funds to advance 106 pro-LGBT projects “across Canada.”

Carney, whose ties to globalist groups have had Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre call him the World Economic Forum’s “golden boy”.

Canadians will head to the polls on April 28.

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