Upstate NY mayor blasts Biden admin for secretly flying in migrant children

A mayor in upstate New York condemned the Biden administration for flying dozens of migrant children to his small town in secret last week.

Multiple flights from Texas have landed at the Orange County Airport in Montgomery, New York, in recent weeks including two from Democrat-led El Paso, according to reports. Most arrive under cover of darkness in early morning hours.  

The most recent plane touched down late Friday with 25 migrant children, mostly girls ages 13 to 17, from El Paso, reported Mid Hudson News on Oct. 1.

The minors were quickly whisked off to 12 locations, including children’s homes and shelters, across New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, according to documents obtained by the New York Post.

Montgomery Village Mayor Steve Brescia told The Post that the flights seemed “clandestine,” or covert, and criticized the White House for not letting them know ahead of time of their arrival.

“We were never informed about any flights coming into the airport. It’s just disturbing we weren’t informed of any of this,” he continued. “We’re worried about the safety of the passengers who didn’t know where they were going.”

President Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders have been accused of hypocrisy for publicly shaming Republican governors for sending migrant buses north while privately coordinating relocation efforts themselves.

The city of El Paso admitted in late September that it had sent 4,320 migrants to New York City under an agreement with its Democratic mayor, Eric Adams – 50% more than the 2,700 migrants sent by Texas Gov. Greg Abbot, a Republican, by the same point in time.

The New York Post broke last year that the administration began flying migrants from Texas to Westchester County Airport, just north of the Big Apple, since August 2021. It reported on Monday that the White House had changed their destination to Orange County Airport starting last week.

The migrant flights are reportedly part of the ongoing movement of immigrants from Texas to the rest of the country as ordered by the Department of Homeland Security. But a spokeswoman for DHS told Mid Hudson News via email that “The Department of Homeland Security was not involved in any flight as detailed in your story.”

Montgomery County Deputy Police Chief Paul Arteta told The Post that last week’s flight was organized by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which falls under the Department of Health and Human Services.