This is a new wrinkle in the Biden border crisis. Nicaragua is accused of weaponizing Haitian migrants bound for the United States as Daniel Ortega tries to get concessions from the U.S. as sanctions are tightened.

More than 260 charter flights have carried migrants from Haiti to Nicaragua in recent months. Flight data shows that official air routes are not being used but the flights began in August. Ortega is using the migrants to ‘attack’ the United States.

Manuel Orozco, director of the migration, remittances and development program at the Inter-American Dialogue said: ‘This is definitely a concrete example of weaponizing migration as a foreign policy.

He added: ‘The Ortega government knows they have few important policy tools at hand to confront the United States, so they have armed migration as a way to attack.

People fleeing countries like Cuba and Mauritania in Africa have long used Nicaragua as a way to get to where they are going because Nicaragua does not require visas for many countries to enter. Flights from Cuba were already picking up late last year during a historic exodus from that country.

The charter airlines have flown as many as 31,000 people out of Haiti, which would represent nearly 60 percent of the Haitians arriving to the U.S. border, Orozco’s data shows.

Over the same period, some 172 flights have carried 17,000 people from Cuba to Nicaragua.

The Associated Press confirmed that Haitians are spending thousands of dollars to leave Haiti in hopes of reaching the United States. Haiti is the poorest country in the hemisphere. Orozco said most pay between $3,000 to $5,000 for a seat on one of the charter flights.

Things really heated up last weekend when it was reported by local media that in a span of 48 hours, 27 charter flights from Haiti landed in Nicaragua. A spokesman for Platform for Democratic Unity, Enrique Martinez, said that this is a strategic moment for Ortega’s government. ‘Ortega is going to use this migration issue to say to the United States that we’re the ones in control. And if they want to stop this, they´re going to have to negotiate.’

Ortega is probably hoping for the same kind of deal Venezuela recently negotiated with the Biden administration. In exchange for loosening sanctions on the Venezuelan government, Venezuela promised to carry out democratic elections. The Biden administration is filled with wide-eyed optimists who are naive enough to make such a deal. So, why wouldn’t Nicaragua pursue its own kind of sweetheart deal?

A spokesperson for Sunrise Airways, Stephanie Armand, said that data shows there were at least 15 flights over the past week. Sunrise does’t sell tickets to Nicaragua. The airline contracts third parties to carry out the flights. She would not say who the third parties were though. The airline checks passengers’ documents before boarding. If passengers comply with entry requirements, they are allowed into the country.

Nicaragua is weaponizing our open border against us. I wonder whatever happened to our border czar, Kamala Harris, and her task to figure out the root causes of illegal immigration from Latin America. Where is she in this heist? Oh, never mind. She’s probably on a college campus somewhere talking about abortion. Priorities.