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Intriguing flights recently landed at the Wilkes-Barre-Scranton airport in the dead of night.
Elected officials -- previous and current -- said they carried more illegal aliens than just unaccompanied children being paired with families that the Department of Health and Human Service has confirmed.
There was a similar crossfire of curiosity and cynicism regarding flights to Florida in previous months.
And recently, tape emerged of a similar flight landing in White Plains, New York, with federal government contract personnel on the audio saying they could not divulge the details of the flight without Americans learning they were "being betrayed by their country."
The 52 minutes of audio accompanying the video are chilling. The bus driver transporting those deplaning said he did not know where he was headed and inferred that has been the case regarding multiple flights since last August. The contractors told security they are not allowed to identify themselves or have their picture taken and there was scant identity information on any of the passengers other than lanyards. The background regarding the 12 "chaperones" on the flight was not divulged. The contractor said all the flights go to off-the-beaten-path airports in the middle of the night in hopes no one will know of them.
The airport in Avoca is 77 miles from here. Has our leaky border arrived at our backyard?
All I know is that when my grandfather landed at Ellis Island with a boatload of people seeking legal immigration more than a century ago, it was celebrated by one and all in broad daylight. There was no flight in the dark at a back terminal, with murky details released only when people were pressed.
The contrasting images should make it clear to compassionate, common-sense Americans that there is a right and wrong way to handle immigration.
And yet, merely suggesting that makes a person bigoted in the eyes of the mob that rules social media and dominates much of this debate. Never mind that many of the people wanting an orderly border generally want more legal immigration fostered by a swifter and less expensive process. And why not? Most of us are here by virtue of that process and know it would only improve the fabric of our country.
The problem, as usual, is the missing conversations.
No one accusing border patrol agents of abusing mothers and children seems to want to go to Texas and ask them what they see during a typical work shift. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas did that last week and got the hard truth from frustrated border agents, who told the secretary the administration is allowing illegal aliens to be dropped off in American communities.
No one accusing folks living on the border of racism wants to talk with a rancher in Arizona who wakes up in the morning to find a total stranger roaming their property.
No one who thinks building a wall at our borders is cruel wants to talk with the mom who has lost a child to a drug overdose that originates from some of the nearly 4,000 pounds of fentanyl transported across our border in the past year. A dosage less than the size of a grain of rice can kill.
No one seems to care how disrespectful this all is toward the millions of immigrants who have legally followed the process.
We can't solve a crisis if we don't talk about it. The words immigration and border barely came up when President Biden -- whose top responsibility is protecting the American people -- held an almost two-hour press conference two weeks ago. The Wolf administration's response to the flights to Avoca was that it's a federal matter and anyone asking questions is doing so as a publicity stunt.
When the subject does come up, the administration's knee-jerk answer is to blame the previous administration for attempting to build a wall at our border and executing policies they consider restrictive and racist.
Somehow, two million illegal immigrants from dozens of countries crossing unfettered into our country, with scant background knowledge and transportation to who knows where is a better alternative.
The country's immigrant population -- legal and illegal -- was 46.2 million in November, according to the Census Bureau. That's the most ever, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. It increased by 470,000 between October and November alone. Then consider that in the previous year the immigrant population fell slightly. That can't be a coincidence.
All of us should want to welcome people into our country, our communities, our homes and our work forces.
But none of us should be expected to do that without any knowledge of who we are welcoming, why they are here and what their true wishes and motives are.
And our elected leadership at the federal and state level is dutybound to make sure those questions are answered before knowingly allowing mysterious dropoffs in the middle of the night at backwoods outposts near here.
David F. Troisi retired as editor of the Sun-Gazette. None of the opinions expressed necessarily represent the views of the Sun-Gazette.