Migrants from all over the world travel on charter planes trying to reach the United States: NPR

As often happens in the world of immigration, news first spread on social media. On TikTok and Facebook, Haitians posted videos of themselves fleeing the country by plane.

And not just on any plane, but on charter planes, whose sole purpose appears to be to help people immigrate.

In New Jersey, Pierre eagerly watched one video after another. He and his wife had hurriedly fled Haiti in 2016 after his father survived an assassination attempt, leaving behind their three children.

They had been trying to reunite with them ever since, and these flights presented an opportunity. In September 2023, Pierre decided it was worth the risk. He paid nearly $8,000 for his children, ages 10, 13 and 18, to take a charter flight from Haiti to Nicaragua.

They would travel with an acquaintance, and after arriving there, they would travel on foot, bus and car to the US border. Once they arrive in the United States, they will apply for asylum.

“Everyone, my Haitian colleagues, was talking about the planes and taking advantage of them,” he says. “The price was high, but we had no other choice.” NPR is not identifying Pierre by his full name because he fears speaking out would hurt his asylum claim, which remains unresolved.

Nicaragua as a runway to the United States

Pierre’s children are among hundreds of thousands of migrants who have used charter planes since 2022 to reach the United States. according to Migration Analysts These migrants fly to Nicaragua, and from there they make their way north.

The Biden administration accuses these charter companies of collaborating with global human smuggling networks and is taking steps to clamp down on them and their executives.

“These charter companies work with criminal organizations. They are often part of criminal organizations,” says Blas Nuñez Nieto, deputy assistant to President Biden and senior adviser for immigration and southwest border coordination.

He says some immigrants pay up to $70,000 for a flight from their home country to the United States, with much of the money going to charter airlines.

Nunez Neto also says Nicaragua deliberately serves as a launching point for migrants trying to reach the United States

“The authoritarian regime in Nicaragua has itself become a human trafficking entity,” says Nunez Neto.

He says Nicaragua has no intention of the migrants actually remaining in the country, noting that the government requires most of them to leave within 96 hours.

The Nicaraguan government has not responded to repeated attempts by NPR to respond to allegations that it facilitates human smuggling. In a recent speech by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega The United States accused To engage in a war against immigrants.

Immigration as political punishment

The phenomenon of migrants boarding charter planes began in late 2021 when Nicaragua eliminated visa requirements for Cubans. Over the next year, tens of thousands of Cubans flew to Nicaragua, from where they paid smugglers to help them make their way to the US border.

According to analysts, charter flights serve two purposes for the Nicaraguan government: they generate millions of dollars in revenue through landing fees, airport taxes and hotel accommodations, and they serve as retaliation against the United States, which has imposed economic sanctions on Nicaragua over political repression. .

Nicaragua realized that this was a way – to use that term – to use migration as a weapon. “The use of migration “As a way to attack the United States directly by sending thousands of immigrants.”

During a six-month period last year, Orozco counted more than 14 daily flights from Haiti, most of them A320 aircraft, which seat between 140 and 170 passengers. While most of the migrants who took charter flights to Nicaragua came from Haiti and Cuba, some also traveled from countries as far away as India and Mauritania.

Orozco says the charter airlines that facilitate their travel tend to be small, with fleets of fewer than 20 aircraft, and the companies are based around the world, including Libya and Romania.

Adam Isaacson, a migration analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, says “adventure” travel agencies have fueled the wave of migrants boarding charter planes. Travel agencies rented, sometimes owned, charter planes and then sold tickets to immigrants for thousands of dollars.

The journey has come with risks for migrants because the Biden administration has made it difficult to seek asylum at the border.

“But if you’re from somewhere on the other side of the planet, these travel agencies can still promise you that you’ll get into the United States and you’ll be able to stay there because the United States doesn’t have the ability to ‘deport you,'” Isaacson says of letters to people wanting to Arrival in the United States

He says that travel agencies “actually stand on a blurry line between a travel agency and a smuggling operation.”

US reaction

US officials have watched with concern the increasing number of charter flights to Nicaragua. While the Biden administration has tried to stem the unprecedented influx of migrants arriving at the US border, charter flights are a major problem — largely because there is no clear solution for how to crack down on flights outside US airspace.

Also, because the migrants were legally allowed to enter Nicaragua, there was nothing the Biden administration could do to prevent them from buying plane tickets to that country.

Instead, the Biden administration sought alternative solutions. In late 2023, it convinced Haiti to impose a complete ban on charter flights to Nicaragua.

The administration also canceled the visas of several charter company executives, but refused to reveal how many visas it canceled or provide the names of the executives.

However, these measures appear to have had an impact as the number of charter flights to Nicaragua has declined in recent months.

“In this area, you can never declare victory, so we certainly don’t do that,” he added. “We realize that what we are doing has been successful and we will continue to do it,” says Nunez Nieto, Biden’s senior immigration adviser.

For Pierre, the Haitian father, charter flights have been a lifeline.

He was reunited with his children in July, at his home in New Jersey, after nearly a decade. He estimates he spent up to $30,000 on their trip to the United States

He says his children’s lives were more important than money, adding that even if he had to spend more to bring them to the United States, he would have done so.