Want to fly on Turkish Airlines from Istanbul to Bogota? Good luck…the flight is sold out most days. TK800, jokingly called the “Biden Express,” has become the choice flight for migrants to travel to the Americas and launch an overland journey to the US Southern Border.
Turkish Airlines Flight 800, The Biden Express From Istanbul To Bogota
The passengers on TK800 are quite diverse in terms of nationality, but share common traits: they tend to be young, they tend to be male, and they tend to be African. Think Morocco. Ghana. Senegal. Mauritania.
This never used to be a crowded flight. These days, tickets prices are through the roof and the flight routinely sells out:
Why? First, it is easy for most nationalities to transit through Istanbul without a visa. Second, Colombia generously issues transit visas to many travelers from developing nations. So the plan is straightforward: fly to Bogota via Istanbul and then connect to Nicaragua to begin the journey to the US Southern Border.
Why Nicaragua? Because Nicaragua, under Daniel Ortega, is happy to issue “tourist” visas for Africans, knowing full well what they will do with them.
The overland journey through Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and finally Mexico is not easy. The borders are not wide open there either. But this route has proven the most effective at transporting Africans to the Americas in order to be closer to the USA.
Smugglers offer “all-inclusive” packages promising to help desperate Africans flee their nations and position them to get as close to the USA as possible. Often, vulnerable travelers spend their life savings only to receive fake documents and then face deportation from Istanbul after their transit visas are examined.
One traveler told the UK DailyMail:
“America is the country of freedom and human rights. What Joe Biden is doing is good. But if Donald Trump gets re-elected next year, it will become more difficult for migrants there. That guy is crazy.”
Hence the name “Biden Express.”
“Within three weeks or so, I’ll make it to the United States Inshallah!”
African travelers used to connect to El Salvador, but that suddenly became more expensive.
Maybe Turkey should also add an “airport improvement fee” for transit passengers…
CONCLUSION
I am proud to live in a country that people still are willing to give up everything to come to. I recognize that even when not being persecuted, the prospect of any social mobility can be nonexistent in so many developing nations.
But this “Biden Express” flight strikes me as ridiculous. I do not blame Turkey for it (it seems the blame lies with Nicaragua), but it seems both Turkey and Colombia are knowingly enabling illegal immigration to the USA onboard Tk800.
The inability of the US to protect its borders means that some will indeed find their way to the USA. My only hope is that once here, they display the same cleverness and ingenuity in contributing to the economy and the community in which they settle that they spend in reaching the USA…
(Hat Tip: Lukas)
I’m baffled at why so many people think this is not a f***ing problem.
Trump was right about a few things. He is insane and he is not for leadership (neither is Biden) but my goodness do we have a humanitarian disaster in our country at our borders.
If you voted for Biden you are responsible for this. Trump for all his shortcomings correctly predicted this. This is not an accident. What’s going on at our borders is a deliberate act. Where the hell are the Republicans?
a person is NOT responsible for this if they voted for biden. biden didn’t become president through an election
What stupid, provincial comment.
And you are an idiot. Using these type of terms just makes that case. This is nothing more than a desperate blogger getting traffic.
Adblock is a god-send for a reason…
What reason is that?
It’s great that you can’t make money off of me while being a racist hypocrite. I get the useful information for free while making sure you don’t get peanuts for sensational non-sense content.
Racist hypocrite? LOL.
Stop drinking the Kool-Aid dear.
Lol you’re a perfect example of why I say the left wing ideology is an ideology of emotion rather than logic and reason.
Let’s be real, the reality is that a few thousand per year manage to actually get into the U.S. this way. It’s not like massive boatloads of immigrants are filling cargo aircraft and storming the border. Is it a problem? Of course, but it’s not like we are seeing half the nation of Mauritania beating down the doors of a Rio Grande crossing, This article goes way too far (it’s the Daily Mail, lol) in painting a picture that would make one think that millions of migrants are using this entry.
Yes, Biden relaxed an extreme counter by Trump earlier, but the administration is clearly working on middle ground solutions at this point knowing the rollbacks were too much. One extreme often results in another, and why the moderates (majority) of this country need to start rising up to take back policy and avoid a never ending extreme tit for tat. Biden has learned this, Trump will never. If Trump is elected, which is possible despite everything, it will just continue a back and forth for years with no solutions ever evolving in the middle, as they are starting to now.
It is not a perfect world. In my neck of the woods, we could welcome some migrants. But this needs planning. Why we haven’t we seen this I can’t understand. We have agricultural and other employment that is unskilled but pays well. Biden did speak privately with our mayor, but then she moved to the state for other work. As I am a member of the Grange, I would like to see this completely unpolitical organization gain some traction in drawing the US back together. The truth is usually in the middle.
I forgot to point out, anyone, anywhere can join. Any member can propose an issue (grassroots).
Interesting, probably explains why I couldn’t find any award availability for it and will instead be ‘enjoying’ two long haul flights on Avianca for my next trip to Argentina.
If we’re having such a “crisis” at the border, why is my city, located only 200 mi from the border, having a labor shortage?
Because the invaders don’t work.
Irregular migrants to the US seem to be an extra-hardworking group from what I’ve seen across the land of opportunity. And many of them even end up paying into Social Security to support socialism for the mainly elderly European-Americans while they themselves often end up not being able to get anything out of Social Security.
Thanks for the hat tip.
Lukas with a K 🙂
My bad, Lukas. Thank you!
Insane how this isn’t the biggest issue in American politics.
The left and democrats use a constant stream distraction to take away focus on actual problems. Those actual problems are caused by them.
They benefit from these migrants because it gives them more votes and more power. They are importing millions of new voters for their party.
Spare me. Even if migrants successfully make an asylum claim or otherwise get on a legal path to citizenship, it’s still years before any of them would be naturalized and thus eligible to vote in most elections (some cities do allow permanent residents to vote in local elections, but there aren’t many). It’s ridiculous to claim that the Democrats are engaged in a conspiracy solely to boost their voter rolls 5-10 years in the future. Even if that is the case, only those who successfully go through the legal naturalization process would be eligible down the road.
Meanwhile, Republicans are actively pursuing anti-democratic policies by making it harder for voters they don’t like to vote, and failing that claiming that any election they lose is somehow illegitimate. I mean they just chose a Speaker of the House, who in addition to being a misogynist and a homophobe, was one of the architects of some of the more legally inane arguments to help Trump’s attempts to steal the 2020 election from Biden. It’s like they aren’t even trying to hide their anti-democratic bent anymore.
@chasgoose
There’s that left wing emotion over reality again.
Right on que the fifth column shows itself spouting the same tired debunked talking points.
Those thing you hate about the new speaker are what make him the right man for the job.
when people like you are allowed to vote democracy is already broken. Hope we can reform that in the future.
You kind of proved my point there by saying I shouldn’t have the right to vote.
Also, I don’t know what was that “emotional” about my comments about Mike Johnson. He is certainly anti-gay, and he also was a big proponent (even more actively than Jim Jordan) of Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election. Those are just facts.
Having traveled on TK800, IST-BOG in July I can confirm the observations in the article. I was surprised by the sheer numbers of male African travellers at the gate in IST who were clearly not experienced travelers. They all disembarked at BOG /didn’t continue on the flight to PTY.
Thanks for the datapoint Henrik.
Was on same flight a month ago. The guys all get off in Bogota and then transit with flights ending in Nicaragua. They all have two week return tickets. Turkish crew told me at least 200 no shows expected on the return leg as they know it is a one way journey. Some of them are paying up to $8000 for business class seats.
Isn’t this entire article based on the Daily Mail article here (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12576219/On-board-Biden-Express-African-migrants-flight-Istanbul-Bogota.html), not just the one quote you attribute to them?
If you want to write an article criticizing Biden’s immigration policy, have the balls to do that directly and not mask it as a travel article.
You could have also wrote this article without using the term “Biden Express” (and without using that as the webpage name). You like to pretend that you are a staunch patriot by attending every inauguration, but you are as much a patriot as those who breached the Capitol on January 6th.
You are blinded by your partisanship. It is pathetic, NateNate. You’re such a hack – so, so sad. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about concerning my own outlook. Go take a walk, do some mindfulness exercises, and come back when you have calmed down. If you have any questions about my thoughts on immigration or Biden or Trump, feel free to ask them instead of making asinine assumptions. Do better. You’re a longtime reader and should know better.
Ha — my comment hit a nerve because its true.
I’m not a hack — a hack is someone who pretends to be a lawyer when he didn’t even attempt the bar. A hack is also a nurse who flees to Germany in the middle of the pandemic. A hack is someone who traveled throughout 2020 but didn’t tell readers he got Covid, making it seem safer than it was. And a hack is someone who took a Covid shot in Jan 2021 when it was only available to healthcare workers.
And a hack is someone who copies a Daily Mail article without giving credit.
Rotfl. Okay, a lot more assumptions and a failure to address the substance of my response to you. Very disappointed in you Nate.
I don’t get all the hate here. Stories like this need to be told, this is literally human trafficking.
Thanks for recording it Matthew
This thread pretty much epitomises why so much of the world which used to look up to the USA now looks upon it with scorn, derision and pity.
I call it the Erdogan Express. Turkey’s leader Erdogan loves to use the migrant flows as part of his double game of Turkey being a refuge of openness to migrants seeking security and better opportunities and also enabling irregular migration as a sort of political leverage against European countries and others.
I used Biden Express for the clickbait (it worked, as always) but you are quite right about Erdogan.
I’m disgusting by his Hamas comments as well.
Stuart- a few thousand?? You need to count better try millions!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A few million irregular migrants a year are flying to Latin America from Eurasia or Africa and thereafter crossing by surface means into the US? No way, José — such irregular migrants to the US are far fewer than a few million a year.
Most of America’s irregular migrants coming into the country across the southern border by surface travel means are people whose ancestors were probably in the Americas long, long before the Vikings and other Europeans made it over to the continent.
I always thought it was the Trump Express. Trump said he was responsible for everything.