The operator of Lehigh Valley International Airport confirmed Saturday it has been accepting federally chartered flights like those that have become a political issue elsewhere in Pennsylvania.
In recent weeks, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services flew migrant children into Wilkes-Barre-Scranton International Airport, the agency confirmed Tuesday.
The department has released little other information about the minors, prompting protests from Lou Barletta, an illegal-immigration hawk and former congressman running for governor this year.
Barletta, a Republican vying for the party’s nomination in a big primary field, said he would stop the federal government’s yearslong practice of bringing unaccompanied minors found by the Border Patrol to various facilities in Pennsylvania. The state doesn’t know the medical and criminal backgrounds of the minors, who must be 17 or under to be in the resettlement program, he said. Barletta also said he would refuse to allow the migrant children into Pennsylvania schools, unless they met vaccine requirements that apply to all students.
“It would stop when I’m governor of Pennsylvania because I also recognize the danger and the risks of putting people into our schools without having any idea what the background of that person is,” Barletta said in an interview.
More flights were scheduled to arrive Thursday and Friday at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton airport, Barletta said.
Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat who’s constitutionally barred from running for another term, hasn’t objected to the flights or the department’s practices. In a statement, Wolf’s office said immigration questions should be directed to the federal government and suggested that Barletta and others are pulling a “political PR stunt.”
Colin Riccobon, spokesman for the Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority that operates LVIA outside Allentown, confirmed Saturday to lehighvalleylive.com: “Similar to reports of operations at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport (AVP) and airports around the nation, Lehigh Valley International Airport (ABE) has also received Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) charter flights and potentially could see additional operations in the future.”
Riccobon continued; “Under grant assurances with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and as a federally obligated public use airport, the Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority (LNAA) does not have the ability to discriminate against any aeronautical activity by refusing or denying aircraft from arriving or departing Lehigh Valley International Airport (ABE).”
The airport authority spokesman referred further questions about the flights to the federal Department of Health and Human Services. An email seeking comment Saturday from lehighvalleylive.com was not immediately returned.
These types of flights are not unusual.
The department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement has housed more than 350,000 of the migrant children across the country and in every state in the past seven years, according to its figures.
More than 5,800 of them came to Pennsylvania, spanning the presidential administrations of Democrat Barack Obama, Republican Donald Trump and now Democrat Joe Biden.
The destination of the passengers on the flights into LVIA has not been disclosed.
Children are typically released to sponsors, usually parents or close relatives, and aided by local charitable organizations.
While in the department’s custody, the children receive vaccinations under a “catch-up” schedule for those who are behind and sponsors are given a copy of the child’s medical and immunization records compiled during their time in custody, the department said. They are tested and vaccinated for COVID-19, it said.
As mayor of Hazleton for more than a decade, Barletta gained national prominence for accusing the federal government of failing to enforce immigration laws. His concerns about the flights echo those of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican officeholders in Tennessee. There, Republican Gov. Bill Lee refused a request by the Biden administration to house migrant children in Tennessee National Guard facilities.
Barletta said his experience on the House Homeland Security Committee taught him that U.S. border authorities don’t have the time or resources to thoroughly investigate migrant children’s backgrounds.
“You literally do not know who that person is or what their background is, or their age, so if they say they’re a minor, we don’t really know if they’re a minor,” Barletta said.
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The Associated Press and supervising reporter Kurt Bresswein contributed to this report. Reach him at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.