Republican lawmakers demand end to Biden's 'secret midnight migrant flights'

Rep. Ashley Hinson and Tennessee state Rep. Bruce Griffey, both Republicans, appeared on “Fox & Friends Weekend” on Sunday and blasted the Biden administration for allegedly relocating undocumented migrants throughout the United States on covert “midnight flights.”

Joining co-host Will Cain, the two Republican lawmakers discussed their proposed bills to block taxpayer funds being used to cover the elusive relocations, Fox News reported.

"The Biden administration is quietly moving thousands of illegals to various states, including Tennessee, by putting them on planes and buses and transporting them in the middle of the night, and we should return them to their sender," state Rep. Bruce Griffey wrote Wednesday. 

"I imagine that if we relocated them to the backyards of those responsible for allowing the flood of illegal immigration across our border, then those with federal power might be more apt to secure the border and secure it quickly,” he added.

Griffey elaborated on his previous statements on Sunday, noting that "we’ve seen video from other states of migrant flights throughout the United States." 

"I don’t know that we have those in Tennessee, but it’s certainly a major concern for Tennessee and that’s why I proposed this bill," he continued, stressing the importance of placing "the burden on those districts where these people that make the policy have created the problems for the United States."

If Griffey’s bill were to pass, undocumented migrants could be transported to Democratic strongholds such as Block Island, Rhode Island; Greenwich, Connecticut; Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts; Governors Island, New York; Rehoboth Beach, Delaware; Nantucket, Massachusetts; Newport, Rhode Island; Scarsdale, New York; Palo Alto, California; Yountville, California; St. Helena, California; or North Hero, Vermont. 

Reports surfaced in October of flights transporting undocumented migrants from border states landing in suburban New York – but such reports were neither new nor limited to any one state.

Last week, for example, former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino filed a Freedom of Information Act request that revealed footage of a police officer at his local airport confronting federal contractors who were bringing migrants to the state under the cover of the night in August of 2021. In the video, one contractor can be heard telling the officer that the flights were kept secret, "because if this gets out, the government is betraying the American people."

However, Biden administration officials responded Friday to the leaked video footage claiming that the footage is "not new or news." 

"There are no such things as secret flights," a White House official told reporters. "The video footage your network has been running endlessly is from six months ago in August. Which by the way, Jen [Psaki] and others in the administration addressed this then too. Not new or news."                                                                                                        

But lawmakers around the country have been pushing back on the Biden administration’s potentially illegal, migrant flights for some time now.

In December of last year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed new legislation that would crack down on the issue of undocumented migrants being brought to the Sunshine State without state authorization.

During a news conference in Jacksonville, DeSantis noted that the practice also helps contribute to larger socio-economic issues like crime.

“Cartels are eating our lunch with what is going on with these border policies," said DeSantis. "So we filed suit against the Biden administration about challenging the catch and release policies. That case is still pending in the Northern District of Florida in the Pensacola division, but I will tell you, already we've seen movement."

DeSantis also recommended legislation to "strengthen Florida to fight back against the border crisis". Specifically, the governor says that any contractor involved with moving undocumented individuals to Florida will be barred from doing business in Florida.

For that reason, Hinson stressed the importance of passing The Stop the Betrayal Act of 2022 – which would bar federal funds being used by federal agencies to transport undocumented immigrants to different U.S. states without authorization, while still allowing funding to be used for deportations and the enforcement of immigration law as well as the transport of unaccompanied children to Health and Human Services (HHS) facilities.

Ultimately, she introduced the bill because "we know these [flights] are happening in the dead of night and the Biden Administration is essentially bringing the border crisis to Americans’ backyards."

"We know this is happening and it’s taking leaked video and leaked audio to get accountability from the Biden administration - so the Biden administration, in my mind, is directly responsible for the board or crisis and my – constituents are saying… this could happen in my backyard," she argued. 

"And so we need to stop taxpayer funding from putting up the dollars to be able to move these migrants, these illegal immigrants, around our country – and they need to stop doing it in secret and spend less time lying to the American people and more time fixing the problems at the border."