America’s airports have become the latest front line on border crossings as illegal immigrants pour in by the tens of thousands each month, bypassing the U.S.-Mexico boundary and landing deep in the country’s heartland.
They’re coming via the administration’s new “parole” program, which seeks to take Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans, who had been rushing the southern border, and redirect them to airports.
Officers manning the country’s non-land ports of entry — chiefly airports, but also sea and ferry ports — counted nearly 50,000 unauthorized migrants in April, or roughly three times the rate just a year ago.
The migrants are part of a broader onslaught on the “ports of entry.” Customs and Border Protection’s office of field operations recorded 92,106 encounters with unauthorized migrants at the air, land and sea ports of entry in April.
That was more than four times the roughly 22,000 per month at the start of President Biden’s term.
Administration officials see the numbers as a victory, figuring that each illegal immigrant coming to a port of entry is one who didn’t pay a smuggling cartel and didn’t try to jump the border, overwhelming the Border Patrol.
Instead, they have been funneled into what the administration calls “lawful” pathways.
“DHS has overseen a ‘whole-of-government’ effort that has reduced unlawful entries between our ports of entry by 70%,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Blas Nunez-Neto told Congress in testimony last week.
Others see the shift as an attempt to disguise the true size of the immigration problem, pointing out that the migrants are still considered “inadmissible” — or illegal immigrants — but no longer show up in the Border Patrol’s apprehension numbers.
“It’s a shell game,” said Mark Morgan, who served as acting commissioner at CBP during the Trump administration.
The airport arrivals are steadily rising even as the rest of the border remains chaotic.
Apprehensions by Border Patrol agents rose late last year, sank at the start of this year, and rose again in March and April, though they are likely to be significantly lower once May’s numbers are released.
What’s clear is that an increasing number of illegal immigrants choose to enter the country through airports.
In April 2022, CBP recorded 262,109 encounters with illegal immigrants. Just 6.4% of them came through the airports and seaports. In April 2023, CBP recorded 275,448, and 18% of them came through the seaports and airports.
Add in CBP’s land border crossings, and one-third of all illegal immigration activity occurred at ports of entry. In April 2022, that figure was just 22.2%.
Of those airport arrivals in April 2023, 10,437 were from Haiti, 7,316 were from Cuba, 5,435 were from Venezuela and 5,215 were from Nicaragua. Some 5,435 others were from Ukraine. A special parole program was created for Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion.
That’s nearly 35,000 unauthorized migrants welcomed via airports. In April 2022, the figure for those five countries was fewer than 1,000.
In addition to the airport arrivals, CBP has another program at the southern border to catch and release migrants who lack visas but schedule appointments through a smartphone app to surrender at border crossings.
More than 22,000 migrants were caught and released under that program. CBS News reported that the administration plans to boost that figure to 40,000 a month.
Administration officials say that since they aren’t jumping the border and have been pre-scheduled by CBP officers, the port arrivals are using “lawful pathways.” Others dispute that characterization, saying they are still considered “inadmissible” under the law, making them illegal immigrants even if they have a tentative legal status.
Mr. Morgan said there is some value to pushing migrants to enter through ports of entry.
For one thing, it relieves pressure on the Border Patrol, which has fewer people it needs to process, which means more agents can be out on the front lines trying to detect high-value contraband such as drugs or dangerous illegal immigrants whom the cartels are trying to sneak into the U.S.
“It’s all good. Full stop,” said Mr. Morgan, agreeing that the port entries could reduce the burden on the Border Patrol. “However, at what cost? Is feigning success in one area, by violation of the Constitution and a perversion of the laws of our country, is that worth it? No, I don’t think it is.”
Andrew “Art” Arthur, a former immigration judge and now a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said there is no way of knowing whether the administration is redirecting migrants away from illegal crossings and toward ports of entry or just inviting new migrants.
“It’s like responding to a surge in shoplifting by handing out gift cards,” Mr. Arthur said. “There’s no guarantee the person you gave the gift card to is the person who otherwise would have shoplifted.”
In response to an inquiry for this article, CBP said more than 95,000 people have been allowed into the U.S. since the airport parole program began.
While they show up in CBP’s border numbers, they are processed for parole by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
USCIS did not respond to an inquiry for this report, and it’s not clear what sorts of steps the agency is taking to keep tabs on the migrants caught and released under its auspices.
Mr. Biden announced the parole program for Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans in early January, and it did produce quick results.
The number of people from those four countries who tried to jump the border went from nearly 3,500 a day in mid-December to fewer than 340 a day in late March.
Things deteriorated in April as Venezuelans rushed the border, defying the administration’s entreaties to apply for the special parole program. CBP reported a record 41,000 encounters with unauthorized Venezuelan migrants, and nearly 30,000 of those were Border Patrol arrests.
Pointing to the early successes, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas complained that Republican officials were suing to stop programs that reduced the burden on the Border Patrol.
“It is interesting to see some of the tools that we employ, that are successful or operationally needed, to be challenged in the courts,” he said last month. “I question the motives of the plaintiffs.”
Mr. Morgan said shifting how people enter does nothing to change the numbers of illegal immigrants gaining access to the U.S.
“The end result is the same: Everyone’s being released,” he said.
Most of them will still end up with no valid claim to be in the U.S., based on historical rates of asylum adjudications, he said. They will be nearly impossible to dislodge and will go on to join the already massive illegal immigrant population.
“If they’re paroling people into this country in violation of the law, that does not make them legal,” Mr. Morgan said.
Under the law, people are to be paroled only in exceptional circumstances where there is a “significant” benefit to the public or an “urgent” humanitarian need.
Traditionally, those meant cases in which a medical procedure could be performed only in the U.S. or where the government needed someone to help in an investigation.
The Biden administration has granted parole to more than 1.5 million people since 2021 by broadening the definitions of benefit to include reducing overcrowding at the border and making parole a safety valve for people who don’t qualify as refugees but whom the administration still wants to admit.
A federal judge pointed to another problem with the way the Biden team is handling parole.
U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell said under the law, those who are paroled are to be under strict conditions to return to their original status once the parole is up. If granted a 60-day parole pass, they should head to an airport or border crossing and leave at the end of that period.
There is no sense that the Biden administration has the ability, or even the intention, to have those 1.5 million parolees rounded up and ushered out at the end of their time in the U.S.
Judge Wetherell issued an injunction halting one version of parole. Another court is hearing the case challenging the Venezuela parole program, and no ruling has been issued yet.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre accused the judge of trying to “sabotage” the administration’s plans.
“It’s a harmful ruling,” she said.
