BIDEN’S TROJAN HORSE – ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT FLIGHTS- DEL RIO BRIDGE, TX- PART I
NOTE: I am breaking this post into two sections because I am covering many flights with specific timelines that need to be examined. The pieces I wrote for the National perspective and Pennsylvania had specifics, but often cited two or three individual flights as examples of what I was referring to (instead of listing all of the flights that met the criteria). For this piece I am sharing every flight in certain time periods to back up the assertions I am making. Part I will examine the crisis at the bridge in Del Rio, TX and whether 2,000 migrants were actually sent back to Haiti as asserted by DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Part II will examine where the 12,000+ people who were allowed to stay in the country went when they left Del Rio.
Many have seen press coverage of the surge in border crossers since the Biden Administration took office and virtually eliminated our southern border. To put some numbers to what is occurring along the southern border ABC News reported that in August of 2021, the Customs & Border Patrol had apprehended 208,000 people. In August of 2020 the number of apprehensions was 50,014. As has been discussed before this is expected to climb with the planned elimination of Title 42.
One of the most highly publicized events (so far) was the encampment of (mostly Haitian) migrants under the Del Rio Bridge in Texas last September. The migrants had appeared in a matter of days and had overwhelmed US Border Patrol and the city of Del Rio which shut down the border to process them. By September 17, the number had grown to over 14,000 with thousands more arriving daily.
It will be helpful in this story to see the locations of the airports, especially given the commentary about where Haitian migrants were sent to or from. Del Rio can be seen in the lower left portion of Texas on the map:
The border crossing in Del Rio is a single bridge over the Rio Grande River. On the US side the bridge is elevated in case of flooding. The migrant camp was under this elevated portion.
After about a week of news coverage on the situation the Biden Administration took steps to minimize film footage of the encampment. Fox News’ Bill Melugin had used a drone to capture footage of the bridge and the migrant encampment underneath with updates as the numbers swelled. But the FAA banned the drone and forced him to move away from the bridge to minimize any pictures of what was occurring.
Suddenly by September 24th they were all gone with NBC reporting the following statement made by Sec’y Mayorkas on Friday September 23: “Of the approximately 15,000 migrants who arrived at the border in recent days, Mayorkas said, 2,000 were returned to Haiti on 17 flights under the policy called Title 42 which was invoked at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic….. An additional 12,400 will remain in the country and have their asylum cases heard by a judge…”
Because I question everything this Administration is doing, I looked at the flight data to see if it matched what we were being told. How do their narratives compare to actual flights leaving actual cities? What was left out when they referenced 12,000+ staying in the US to go through the immigration process? Were they placed in ICE Detention facilities as is so often claimed by the Biden Administration? Or were they sent to states around the country and simply given a “notice to appear” for their immigration hearings? The flight data tells us a lot.
First, I chose to examine the “2,000 were returned to Haiti on 17 flights” point. I looked at the flights that went to Haiti from the US in the timeframe that made sense- From 9/15/21 through 9/23/21 (the day Sec’y Mayorkas made the comments), 17 flights went to Haiti (Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haitien). So that initially made sense. Next, I decided to look at the airports they took off from here in the US.
All the airports were the typical “border airports” we see used for so many flights. But something didn’t make sense. Why were these airports used? I examined where the airports were in relation to the Del Rio Bridge as reflected in the table below. Why did no flights to Haiti take off from Laughlin AFB in Del Rio? Why did 6 flights take off from Harlingen, 354 miles away? Not to mention the 2 flights from Brownsville which are 379 miles away? Or the 1 flight from Alexandria LA which is 590 miles away?
Given that the above seems odd, migrants from Del Rio would be flown back to Haiti from an airport 354 miles away (or 590!) I then examined how the migrants got to those airports. Much of the “explanation” provided by Sec’y Mayorkas does not make fit when we examine incoming and outgoing flights and times.
Let’s look at the airports and flights 1 by 1:
ALEXANDRIA INTERNATIONAL (KAEX), Alexandria, LA:
COMMENTS: The 4 flights on 9/22/21 are not from the Del Rio area so would not appear to be bringing migrants to Alexandria for deportation to Haiti.
1. Columbus (KCSG) is Columbus Georgia, 1,063 miles east of Del Rio. Alexandria is 514 miles west of Columbus. Were migrants flown east 1,063 miles, only to be flown back west 514 miles?
2. El Paso is 428 miles west of Del Rio, Alexandria is 940 miles East of El Paso. So in this case would Haitians be flown 428 miles west, then flown 940 miles east?
3. Phoenix-Mesa Gateway is 810 miles west of Del Rio and Alexandria is 1,300 miles east of Phoenix. Would a trip totaling 2,110 miles (Del Rio to Phoenix to Alexandria) be logical?
4. Tucson is 739 miles west of Del Rio and 1,249 west of Alexandria, so the same question exists.
5. While the flight from Laughlin AFB would be logical given that Laughlin AFB is IN Del Rio, it arrived after the flight to Haiti took off. The flight on 9/23/21 was the only flight from Alexandria to Haiti between the start of the “bridge crisis” and when Sec’y Mayorkas made his comments.
BROWNSVILLE INTERNATIONAL (KBRO), Brownsville, TX:
COMMENTS:
1. Two flights took off from Brownsville to Haiti in the 9/15/21 – 9/23/21 time period (before Sec’y Mayorkas’ comments).
2. Of the three flights to Brownsville on 9/21/21 only the Alexandria flight would be bringing (in theory) Haitian migrants to Brownsville from Del Rio. But are we to believe the migrants were brought from Del Rio to Alexandria, LA (590 miles east of Del Rio), then flown 594 miles back to Brownsville in south Texas to be put on a flight to Haiti? I would ask the same question about the Alexandria to Brownsville flight on 9/22/21.
3. The Atlantic City flight on 9/22/21 would not be bringing Del Rio migrants to Brownsville. The other flights into Brownsville were from foreign countries- Jose Joaquin is in Ecuador, Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haitien are in Haiti and La Aurora is in Guatemala.
VALLEY INTERNATIONAL (KHRL), Harlingen, TX:
COMMENTS:
1. Valley International (KHRL) in Harlingen, TX (46 miles west of South Padre Island near the Gulf coast) sent 6 flights to Haiti in the time period in question. Of these 6 flights, 2 of the flights could have carried Haitian migrants:
2. 9/21/21 a flight from San Antonio (one of the closest airports to Del Rio) arrived at 5:18 AM. Flights left Valley for Haiti at 7:51 AM and 8:34 AM.
3. Also on 9/21/21, at 8:42 AM, a flight arrived from McAllen, TX which “could” have delivered Haitian migrants for the 11:22 AM flight from Valley to Port-au-Prince. This seems less likely as McAllen is 35 miles from Valley Int’l in Harlingen, TX (notice the takeoff and landing times which were 15 minutes apart) and no flights from close to Del Rio had arrived in McAllen that day (or in the week previous) but it “could” have happened.
There were no other flights to Valley that would have delivered migrants from Del Rio for the other four flights (from Valley to Haiti).
CONCLUSION:
I can’t definitively prove that Sec’y Mayorkas was misleading the public with his statement regarding the repatriation of Haitians to Haiti. The Government could well have taken trips of a few hundred miles and turned them into 1,000 or 2,000 mile flights. Unfortunately the comments do not match the flight history under a scenario I can come up with.
Ultimately, the 2,000 Haitians, who may or may not have been sent back, is the lesser of the two stories in my mind. Of greater importance is what happened to the 12,000+ Haitians who were allowed to stay in the country while they await the outcome of their immigration hearings? We know they weren’t kept in Del Rio immigration facilities. So where did they go? That will be in PART II