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15 Jul, 2021 14:41

US military flying planeloads of illegal immigrants around America in secret – media

US military flying planeloads of illegal immigrants around America in secret – media

The US military is using passenger aircraft to fly illegal immigrants within the US from an Air Force base in Texas, according to documents seen by Fox News. The operation, confirmed by the Pentagon, is being conducted in secret.

In the coming days, weeks and months, passenger aircraft will transport illegal immigrants from Laughlin Air Force Base in Del Rio, Texas, to undisclosed locations. That’s according to an email from a colonel at the base to his subordinates, supposedly given to Fox host Tucker Carlson by a whistleblower.

The email explains that the flights will be operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Del Rio Border Patrol, and the colonel, Lt. Col. Matthew Burrows, instructs personnel at the base to keep the operation under wraps.

“Do not take photographs and refrain from posting anything on social media,” Burrows wrote. “If anyone asks you about it, refer them to public affairs.”

The destination of these flights is unknown. A Pentagon spokesman told Carlson’s show that the flights were part of a “non-citizen movement” program, and referred Carlson’s team to ICE. 

“ICE did not deny they were using Laughlin Air Force Base to relocate large numbers of foreign nationals into the interior of our country and do it secretly,” Carlson said on his show on Wednesday night. Carlson said that ICE promised to provide additional details, but never did.

Also on rt.com Americans prefer low immigration by 3-to-1 margin, poll shows, which may help explain disapproval of Biden’s border policies

The operation, if it exists as Carlson claims and ICE doesn’t deny, would not be unprecedented. Back in March, the Center for Immigration Studies, a right-wing think tank, reported that the Department of Homeland Security was apprehending migrants near the Mexican border in Texas and releasing them to a charity organization to be placed on buses and sent as far north as Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Massachusetts. 

The migrants bussed north were given documents reading ‘Order of Release on Recognizance,’ which allowed them to remain within the US, but ordered them to make an appointment with a deportation officer at a later date. This policy of ‘Catch and Release’ was ended by former President Donald Trump, but reinstated by President Joe Biden this year.

As border crossings surged following Biden’s inauguration and subsequent rollback of Trump’s more hardline immigration policies, the administration itself also chartered buses to ease the pressure on processing and detention facilities at the border, often to the dismay of the towns where the migrants were unloaded.

Also on rt.com Arizona mayor declares state of emergency, says Biden admin sending busloads of illegal immigrants to his town

The use of planes was also discussed back in March. Citing the same spike in crossings and pressure on border facilities, the Biden administration considered using ICE aircraft to fly migrants to states near the Canadian border for processing, according to the Washington Post’s sources. It is unclear if the flights discussed in March are the same ones taking off from Laughlin AFB.

The secrecy surrounding the flights makes it difficult to ascertain the Biden administration’s end goal here. With border crossings reaching new record highs every month since January, it is possible that officials in Del Rio and other border towns simply can’t handle the influx, and the administration is looking to spread the workload around, rather than detain masses of immigrants in already overcrowded holding facilities and risk a PR disaster.

Carlson sees more sinister motives, however. “What you’re watching is demographic transformation, in our country, without our consent and in violation of our laws,” he stated on Wednesday. “That is happening. Our job is to shut up and accept it. We know that they will call us names if we don’t accept it.”

Carlson has previously accused Democratic leadership of pushing for increased immigration in order to reshape America’s demographics in their favor, given that immigrants typically vote Democrat.

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