Michael Yon: “Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society is helping jihadists into the United States — to kill Jews!”

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War correspondent Michael Yon continues to warn the United States that “Jewish money” donated to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) to support refugees has been used to help Islamic jihadists travel through Latin America to the U.S. southern border.

Last week Yon told the Awake to Truth podcast that despite President Trump’s efforts to secure the U.S. borders, the United Nations has no plans to stop promoting illicit “migration” through Latin America via its contracts and partnerships with non-governmental organizations including HIAS.

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According to HIAS.org, the organization was originally founded by the Jewish community in New York City over one hundred years ago: “HIAS has since helped generations of Jews facing violence and remains committed to helping Jewish refugees anywhere in the world.” But HIAS’ help goes to non-Jews too — and to people who do not qualify as refugees. According to Randoland, HIAS reported contributions and grants of $109.7 million in 2021, and $145.8 million in 2022. Grants were issued for programs aiding “all refugees approved for admission to the United States,” as well as programs aiding “vulnerable refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants” in Ecuador, Peru, Costa Rica and elsewhere “through community-based protection.” In Panama, HIAS’ website tells us, HIAS reached 43,900 people “directly through services in 2024,” and that HIAS received support from UNHCR, UN Women, ECHO, AECID, and the Hilton Foundation.

But how many HIAS donors know their donations have been used to bring illegal aliens who do not qualify for refugee status or protection — including Islamic jihadists — to the U.S., in collaboration with the UN?

According to Yon, “you’re going to have people who came through the Darien Gap, on, like, a golf course in West Palm Beach, killing Jewish people, screaming Allahu Akbar. And they will have been helped — by Jewish money! — coming through the Darien Gap,” he said. “HIAS is down there, and HIAS is one of the main engines of the Darien Gap. They’ve got an office that they leased right beside one of the camps.”

Like other charities that make up the UN-NGO “refugee” network that has been developing in Latin America since around 2018, HIAS receives funding not only through charitable donations but also through lucrative contracts with UN agencies, funded mostly by the U.S. State Department.

HIAS map showing routes from Colombia through Panama and Costa Rica.

Yon told Awake to Truth about a database with names and biographical information on people who traveled through the Darien Gap. According to Yon, the name of Laken Riley’s killer, Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, as well as the names of Ibarra’s two brothers, are found in the database. Yon said everyone who travelled through the Darien Gap received assistance from HIAS at least twice. That means Ibarra and his brothers “were helped at least two times, absolute minimum, by HIAS.”

Yon has also reported on his Substack that other illegal aliens who have been in the news for committing violent crimes also appear in the database, indicating that they received help from HIAS to cross the Darien Gap. They include Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, 22, of Mauritania, who shot a Jewish man on his way to synagogue in Chicago last October, and two suspects arrested in connection with the May 25 death of U.S. Air Force Academy Cadet candidate Ava Moore, 18, who died in a jet ski hit-and-run crash on Grapevine Lake in Texas.

On June 1, an horrific terror attack in Boulder, Colorado targeted an event held by Israel supporters. Mohamed Sabry Soliman, a 45-year-old Egyptian national who had illegally overstayed his visa, used a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails, injuring 15 people with burns. Soliman reportedly shouted, “Free Palestine.” One of the victims, an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor named Barbara Steinmetz, was profiled in the New York Post. A photo of Steinmetz shows her wearing a HIAS button with the words: “My people were refugees, too.”

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Mayorkas and HIAS, together in Panama

For a few months, prior to his confirmation as Biden’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, who is the son of Jewish refugees, served as a HIAS board member. During the Biden years, personal connections between humanitarian NGOs and U.S. government officials gave rise to speculation of cronyism in the awarding of contracts. Although NGO heads profited from UN contracts funded with U.S. tax dollars, the motives behind HIAS’ participation are not easily discerned.

According to Yon, Mayorkas “was installed to help the invasion of the United States. Which he did, in spades. If you wanted to be in a position to invade the United States, and do maximum damage to the United States, there’s really no better position than chief of the Department of Homeland Security.”

During the Biden years Yon made multiple trips to Panama’s Darien Gap, where he spent months at a time documenting activities at the invasion camps. Yon stressed to all who would listen — including Republican members of Congress like Tom Tiffany who visited the Darien Gap in 2021 — that Panama’s Darien Gap could be a strategic chokepoint to stop illegal border-crossing, and that closing the passage was imperative.

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According to Yon:

I was physically present when Mayorkas came down, bringing more money to increase the size of the camps. When Panama openly wanted to close the Darien Gap, he flew down. I was there, physically. Waiting. For four days. He landed right in front of me with four Black Hawk helicopters. I thought, if he comes to Panama he’s probably going to go to Darien, he’s probably going to land right here, and he’s probably going to go into this camp.

And he did! The next thing you know, here comes four Black Hawks from U.S. The SOUTHCOM [Commander] Laura Richardson was on one of the helicopters. The ambassador to Panama, [Mari Carmen] Aponte, U.S. ambassador, very woke, super left-wing, she was there. So they came in, showering money, and they increased the size of the flows.

In April 2023 Yon told The Florida Standard that Mayorkas’ trip, described publicly as an effort to discuss ways to curb the migration flow, was actually meant to accomplish the opposite. He reported watching land being cleared to expand the camps, and seeing trailers delivering brand new bunk beds.

Mayorkas’ trip was in anticipation of the lifting of the Title 42 public health order on May 12, 2023. The order barred entry to the United States of anyone who tested positive for Covid-19. In a 20-page memo Mayorkas laid out his plan to contend with “migration levels” which he anticipated would sharply increase when mandatory Covid testing at the border ended. Mayorkas’ stated goal was to “surge resources” — not to help Panama enhance its border security, but to “enhance processing efficiency” to “further facilitate safe and orderly inspection of noncitizens” at our borders. The Biden administration also deployed additional Border Patrol agents and coordinated with NGOs in local communities to accommodate the expected surge.

The Role of the United Nations

Yon emphasized that the main driver behind mass migration was the UN — not the transnational cartels. The cartels “did not pick up these people in Mauritania, in Nepal, in Bangladesh, in India, 150 countries. China. It’s not them, it’s United Nations,” Yon said.

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“United Nations, and others, want you to focus on the drug cartels,” he said. “Yeah, go after those guys — it doesn’t matter. That’s like going after a water spigot when a dam is breaking…. It’s a distraction, so that we’re chasing the rabbit, and meanwhile the lion is chasing us.”

In a hearing before the DOGE Subcommittee on June 4, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies testified about his organization’s investigation of the UN-NGO network that Yon first described in 2021. Krikorian’s testimony explained how aid intended for “humanitarian assistance” for legitimate refugees was exploited by the UN intentionally to undermine U.S. immigration laws.

“So, when we cut off the Darien Gap and the other flows,” Yon said, “but we leave the United Nations in place — and they are in place — then the flows are going to increase again. The reason the Darien Gap is open — specifically, unequivocally, no room for light — is because the United States has kept it open.”

Project Homecoming

From late December 2024 through April of this year, Yon reported on the continued presence and activities in Panama of the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM), which he observed to be active at its headquarters in the City of Knowledge. He also reported lead “migration” NGO, HIAS, was still operating at its office near the entrance of “China Camp” near San Vicente, Darien Province. At that time, Yon reported that continuing operations suggested the UN-NGO network was not being dismantled.

https://hias.org/where/panama/

On May 9 the Washington Post revealed that the Trump administration had contracted with IOM to help implement President Trump’s voluntary return program, Project Homecoming. The Washington Post described it as the president’s “nationwide campaign to reward undocumented immigrants who ‘self-deport,’” offering a $1,000 cash “exit bonus” and free flights home. IOM officials told the Washington Post that the organization would “assist in making sure the process is safe and dignified.” According to USASpending, the IOM contract with the U.S. State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration is worth $25.0 million and runs from March 14, 2025 through March 14, 2026.

Yon, who is currently in Texas, continues to update his readers about events in Panama — including civil unrest that is escalating to violence.

A security alert issued by the U.S. Embassy in Panama City on June 20, which Yon discussed on his Substack, stated that Panama had declared “a state of emergency to restore order” after labor union-organized protests turned violent, and noted that an airport closure “is now affecting essential supply chains to the islands of the Bocas Del Toro Archipelago.” On June 22, Starlink sent out a press release stating that the government of Panama had ordered the suspension of all internet service “in the region,” till further notice. Yon assesses the situation in Panama as “part of the same war Israel is in. And Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, United States of course … this is Global War.”