A Florida Republican congressman who served in the 82nd Airborne and as a defense contractor told Fox News his mission aiding the evacuation of Americans trapped in anarchy-torn Haiti was the third time he had to essentially go it alone abroad to save his fellow citizens.
Rep. Cory Mills told Fox News he helped rescue Americans at an orphanage, after Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., announced Mills’ successful mission in remarks on Capitol Hill. Many of those rescued were reportedly McClain’s constituents.
Chaos erupted in Haiti in recent days amid the resignation of Acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry and the rise of a lethal slumlord named Jimmy Cherizier, AKA “Barbeque.”
Mills claimed the Haitian rescue marked the third occasion in which the Biden administration “abandoned” Americans abroad, citing the Afghanistan withdrawal and Hamas terror attack on Israel in October.
CORY MILLS SAYS HIS COMMUNITY IS HURTING AMID GOVERNMENT OVERREACH, INFLATION
Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., with his fellow pilot Brian Young and the Americans they evacuated from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Office of Rep. Cory Mills)
“This is unfortunately a pattern of abandonment by the Biden administration that has existed since 2021, when he left Americans behind in Afghanistan,” Mills told “Fox & Friends.”
“I always look at the fact that if the government is not going to be willing to do its job, that America has to step up and do certain things that are required.”
He said he helped conduct an overland rescue of a mother and three children left behind in Israel after being asked by Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas. A total of 255 Americans were brought home from Israel in the mission, he said.
Mills’ home-state governor, Ron DeSantis, also oversaw an evacuation effort that reportedly resulted in about 300 Americans being shuttled from Tel Aviv to Tampa after the Hamas attacks.
The Port-au-Prince orphanage where the most recent rescue occurred had asked the State Department for assistance, according to Mills.
CONGRESSMAN EVACUATES 10 AMERICANS FROM CRIME-RAVAGED HAITI
However, the administration instead evacuated what Mills characterized as “nonessential department personnel” that did not include those he helped rescue from the orphanage.
Mills said that, from a macro level, there has been a pattern of government only caring about government and not its citizens.
“Walls don’t work until we have a State of the Union, then we put a wall up around the Capitol — ‘We are working on evacuations, but we can’t get to you’… ” he said.
“This is sending a direct message that the federal government only cares about government, not about the American people.”
“If Americans are abroad and they’re in trouble, I’m going to come to their aid, and if Biden’s not willing to do his job, I’ll do it for him.”
Mills later said the 10 Americans rescued from Haiti were missionaries and philanthropists, and that the mission was a nighttime extraction operation launched from an undisclosed neighboring country via helicopter.
When asked who funded the airlift, Mills replied, “I did.”
The State Department had previously told Fox News Digital that it would continue to monitor the situation and consider its options, including the deployment of forces to help with security at the U.S. Embassy.
“We have no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas,” a State Department spokesperson said March 8. “The U.S. Embassy remains open with limited staffing and will continue to provide assistance to U.S. citizens as necessary.”
During a Tuesday briefing, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the agency did not have a firm figure of how many Americans remain and are trying to leave Haiti.
Following Mills’ prior mission evacuating 32 Americans from Israel, he also criticized the White House’s habit of issuing midday “lids” — or pronouncements that there would be no further scheduled public appearances by the president — amid the Hamas invasion.
“The Biden administration continues to want to do these lids, but I think it’s about time that the American people put a lid on the disastrous administration that continues to fail in their plan and strategy to be able to get Americans out or to take into account the foreign policy [situation] that they actually create that actually leads to these types of incidents,” he told Fox News in October.
FOX News Digital’s Peter Aitken contributed to this report.
