Immigrant Parole Scheme Flying Under The Radar

The Trump Administration is expected to scrap a Biden-Harris program to fly virtually unvetted immigrants into the United States. The controversial plan was short-circuited last July after the media spotlighted reports of flagrant fraud, but flights resumed almost unnoticed in August of 2024.

The hastily cobbled program airlifted migrants from third-world countries Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela into the U.S. Taxpayers footed the bill for the Department of Homeland Security to hire  private jets to disperse the ragtag band of migrants to airports in 43 cities, avoiding public scrutiny. 

The sham program, known as CHNV, was inaugurated in 2022 by the administration after the number of illegal immigrants from those four countries were flooding the southern border in waves. The program's carrot was two-year periods of paroles to migrants from those four countries.

Border Patrol agents intercepted more than 17,500 illegal entrants from those four countries in 2020.  By 2021, the apprehensions skyrocketed ten fold to 181,000.  A year later, the numbers ballooned to 600,000 illegal entrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Instead of tightening border security, the administration green-lighted an ill-conceived program to stem the tide by using private aircraft to fly the immigrants directly to the U.S.  The White House initiated the program without Congressional approval in October 2022.

The scheme's architect, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, launched the spurious plan by airlifting Venezuelans into the country.  It drew little scrutiny from the media, so the administration doubled down in January, 2023,  expanding the scheme to include Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua immigrants.  

In an election year, the Biden-Harris Administration hoped the program would cause illegal crossings to tumble at the border, allowing them to spoon feed stories to the corporate media about the their successful efforts to deal with the immigration issue. This was about election optics not policy. 

The program quota was to shuttle in 30,000 immigrants from the each of the four countries monthly for a total of 300,000 annually.  The administration has admitted to resettling 541,000 immigrants, but CBS News estimated that the number of parolees is closer to 1.4 million since its inception in 2022.

The Homeland Security's $3 billion program allowed illegal immigrants to land in America under a temporary two-year parole with no plan to force the aliens to leave once their stays expired.  In fact, DHS could not reliably track the whereabouts once the immigrants arrived.

Despite the administration's effort to reduce crossings, the Border Patrol apprehended more than 179,000 CHNV illegal immigrants at the southern border in just the first nine months of fiscal year 2024.  The smoke-and-mirrors, election-year strategy was a spectacular failure. 

Yet the administration plowed ahead, with its Swiss cheese process for admitting these immigrants. Under the patchwork system, so-called supporters in the U.S. agreed to give financial assistance to a CHNV national.  Then the immigrants used a U.S. government app to upload photos and a biography.

The four countries could not be counted on to vet the immigrants. Therefore, Homeland Security relied on its employees to attempt to verify the information. To call it a farce, would be too charitable. 

This flawed process allowed CHNV immigrants residing in other countries to apply.  As a result, immigrants from 77 countries, including Fiji, Italy,  Sweden and Iceland returned to their homeland and then boarded flights to the U.S. Those immigrants were unlikely to ever cross the southern border.

Customs and Border Protection fingerprinted the immigrants once they were flown into the U.S. and granted the foreigners a two-year parole. Once stateside, the immigrants had the right to work in America, receive food stamps, Medicaid and welfare benefits. 

Inevitably, the program was exploited by immigrants from the CHNV countries.  For instance 100.948 forms were completed by 3,218 sponsors in the U.S.  Most of the "sponsors" were immigrants who had been beneficiaries of the misnamed "humanitarian" airlift program.  

Investigations uncovered immigrant sponsors listed the same addresses on more than 19,000 forms, allowing the incoming foreigners to skirt the requirement for an American sponsor.  Media reports documented that scammers were charging $5,000 to new CHNV arrivals.

Rampant fraud unearthed by the Fraud Detection & National Security Directorate (FDNSD) forced the government to eventually post on its webpage: "Beware of any scams or potential exploitation by anyone who asks for money associated with participation in this process." 

Venezuelan strongman Nicholas Madura took advantage of the government largess to empty prisons in his country to rid the penal system of notorious Tren de Aragua gang members who ruled the facilities. A DHS memo obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request reported the violent gang is now operating in 16 states. 

Police reports document that gang members have been charged in robberies, murders, shootings of police officers, gun smuggling and other crimes. Immigrant advocate groups and Biden apologists have maintained the reports of Tren de Aragua gang activity are overblown.

Initially, they claimed news reporting was exaggerated about gang members raiding an Aurora, Colorado, apartment complex. Weeks later the Aurora police chief announced that 16 gang members were in custody following a home invasion and kidnapping in the city. 

San Antonio Police recently arrested 19 members of Tren de Aragua who had taken over a vacant apartment complex.  CBS News reported the gang is so pervasive in New York City that its members are openly recruiting adolescents to join their criminal organization.

President Trump should end this dishonest experiment by ordering Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to round up gang members for immediate deportation.  The second priority should be locate all CHNV parolees to immediately adjudicate their status as asylum seekers.  

The incoming administration also should pursue criminal action against DHS Secretary Mayorkas, who presided over the importation of millions of unvetted illegal immigrants.  During his tenure, he repeatedly falsely claimed the CHNV vetting process was safe and secure.

Holding federal government officials legally accountable would be a novel concept in official Washington.  However, this is an egregious case of negligence, using taxpayer funds to usher in criminals from foreign countries who threaten the safety of American citizens.   

Top 12 Predictions for 2025

One hazard of predicting the future is the world only remembers the clunkers.  Accurate forecasts are forgotten as fast as New Year's resolutions. Look no further than 100-year old predictions to validate this theory.  Can you name one prognosis from 1925 that was 100% correct?  Thought so.

English writer H.,G. Wells in 1925 forecast the following:"In a hundred years, there will not be numerous nations, but only three great masses of people--the United States of America, the United States of Europe and China."  Not bad for a fiction writer.

Dr. A.R. Wentz, a professor at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, anticipated that people would use a pocket-sized apparatus for communications to see and hear each other without being in the same room.  He was proven prescient with the advent of the iPhone.

Of course, history remembers only the duds.  A scientist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris believed in 100 years people would live to the age of 150 because society would be free by then from the ravages of germs. He obviously never foresaw the worldwide COVID scourge of 2020.

Perhaps the ugliest prediction about the future belongs to Albert E. Wiggam, an American psychologist, who surmised: "If we keep progressing in the wrong direction, as we have been doing, American beauty is bound to decline and there won't be a good-looking girl to be found 100 years from now." Ouch!

With modest expectations in mind, your writer offers these predictions for the New Year, acknowledging readers will heckle the embarrassing flops:

1. The economy roars past expectations of a consensus 1.9% expansion.  The Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a measurement of economic output, grows by 2.6% on an annualized basis.  The economy is spurred by an extension of personal and corporate tax cuts, reductions in government regulations and increased exports of oil and natural gas.  Consumers spending increases as sentiment rises based on the tax cuts, abolishment of taxes on tips and the elimination of taxes on Social Security.

2.  Stocks shake off early volatility and end year with new records. An erratic market rules in the first quarter as traders assess the ability of President Trump to deliver on economic growth without igniting a crippling trade war over tariffs. The S&P index continues its record run, climbing 15% as the performance of stocks not included in the Magnificent 7 post better than expected gains after a modest selloff in the golden seven.  The NASDAQ leads the stock momentum, reaching new record closes.  The Dow lags but manages a modest 5% gain. A boost in merger-and-acquisition activity under the Trump Administration juices stocks in some categories. Meanwhile, Bitcoin soars to $200,000 on the promise of limited use of the crypto currency for some financial transactions,

3.  The job market, after tailing off in late 2024, experiences a modest uptick.  Most of the job growth last year was in healthcare, hospitality and government.  The Artificial Intelligence race fuels growth in jobs in IT, cloud computing, data centers and robotics.  Remote work continues to decline, replaced by a hybrid model.  Generative AI accelerates in replacing tasks performed by humans, ramping up productivity. Monthly job gains average 130,000-170,000 for the year, beating the second half of 2024. 

4.  Inflation cools by mid-year, ending 2025 at 2.2%.  The No. 1 threat to a return of heated inflation is a full year of wage hikes negotiated least year by major unions representing communications, airline flight attendants, postal workers and autoworkers.  In the new year, the pressure on wages will be contracts for freight railway workers, Boeing, the longshoremen and smaller airlines. But costs of groceries, fuel, raw materials, new efficiencies in supply changes and productivity improvements help bring down inflation.

5. The Federal Reserve takes a wait-and-see attitude for the first half of 2025 before reducing interest rates by 100 basis points (a full percentage point)  Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, miffed by jawboning by President Trump for steep rate cuts, resists the political pressure. Several fed governors break ranks and the case for rate cuts gains momentum on the Federal Open Market Committee (FMOC), leading Powell to reverse course and support lowering rates.  The DOGE effort slices $750 billion in spending to trim the deficit for the year, but more drastic cuts are derailed by Democrats and the entrenched bureaucracy. However, the reduction reduces the federal deficit for the year, giving the Fed more reasons to cut interest rates. 

6.  President Trump's promise of mass deportations falls short of "mass" after hundreds of  thousands of illegals are returned to their countries of origin.  Border Czar Tom Howland picks the low-hanging fruit during the first year, deporting illegal immigrant criminals and suspected terrorists.  However, Democrats and their allies in the media highlight exaggerated contributions of illegal immigrant workers, causing some Republicans in vulnerable districts to waiver in supporting the president. Early on the Trump administration ends the Biden era flights of immigrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti into the U.S, while also reducing border crossings to a trickle. 

7. Multimodal Artificial Intelligence and AI agents are the latest technological developments.  Advances in AI processes create breakthroughs in the generation of content, predictions and insights from multiple forms of data.  AI Agents act autonomously to achieve goals, adapting to changing circumstances and seamlessly working with humans.  These breakthroughs have applications in healthcare, education, communication services, supply chain management and product development. 

8. Once viewed as novelties, AI powered robots graduate from mundane, repetitive tasks to public-facing functions.   Robots already are deployed at warehouses, hospitals and in automotive industries.  In 2025, generative AI will enable robots to plan and replan their tasks, including the ability to understand objects they have never seen before. The new frontier will be creating robots that understand human commands, instead of relying on coded instructions.  Watch for robots to be deployed in fast food chains, where diners will be able tell the machines their order without using a keyboard on a kiosk.

9.  Investments in quantum computing and AI data centers accelerate as the global contest for dominance in those two technologies become nations' priorities.  The field of quantum informational science is critical to national security as the federal government continues to fund research and development. Goggle's parent Alphabet is among the leaders in the quantum field. Powering sprawling AI data centers, the nerve centers of the digital economy, is an issue demanding development of hyper-efficient, liquid cooled structures. The power conundrum is being tackled by  some of the world's biggest data users: Amazon, Microsoft, Google, NVIDIA and Meta.

10.  Electric vehicle sales stall after President Trump and the Republican Congress end the $7,500 tax credit.  In anticipation of the termination of the tax credit, sales of electric vehicles rose 12% in the fourth quarter 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.  Estimates of total EV sales in yearend 2024 are expected to hit 1.3 million, up from 1.2 million in 2023.  Eight percent of all new vehicles sold in the U.S. were electric in 2024, a high-water mark.  Hybrids gain traction with consumers as auto firms churn out more of these vehicles.

11.  Staggering battlefield losses convince Russia's Putin to consider a peace deal to end to the war in Ukraine. By at least one unofficial estimate, the Russians have lost 700,000 soldiers since escalation of the ongoing conflict in 2022. President Trump begins negotiations by challenging European nations to increase their NATO contributions and military support for Ukraine.  In return, he pledges more natural gas shipments to Europe to make up for the loss of Russian resources.  The moves bring Putin to the negotiating table with Ukraine.  Hostilities cease and Europe and the U.S. pledge billions to help Ukraine rebuild its infrastructure.

12.  There is another assassination attempt on the life of President Trump with evidence linking the incident to Iran.   The president places the harshest restrictions ever on Iran and gives Israel the green light to eliminate Iranian nuclear facilities. Under tariff pressure from the U.S., China decreases its purchase of Iranian oil, robbing the regime of one of its key sources of export income.  The Iranian regime teeters on the brink of collapse as protesters take to the streets. 

Clip and save these predictions for 100 years.  Then send an email to your writer about the accuracy of his prophetic abilities.  By then you will be living to the ripe old age of 200, according to this journalist's last prediction for the new year.