DeSantis sends migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, causing ‘humanitarian situation’
"Abbott's bussing makes it more difficult for border officials to do their job. Which in turn often leads to opportunity for Republicans to exploit immigration matters for partisan political gain. "
Florida governor sends about 50 people with no apparent notice, while Venezuelan migrants from Texas bussed to Washington DC
Ron DeSantis speaks in Tampa, Florida, in August. Photograph: Luis Santana/AP
Richard Luscombe @richlusc Fri 16 Sep 2022 02.10 AEST First published on Fri 16 Sep 2022 00.56 AEST
Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, created an “urgent humanitarian situation” in Massachusetts, authorities said, by deporting about 50 undocumented migrants to Martha’s Vineyard with no apparent notice.
Two planes carrying mostly Venezuelan and Colombian adults and children landed on the island on Wednesday afternoon, as part of what DeSantis’s office said was “a relocation program to transport illegal immigrants to sanctuary destinations”.
In a separate development on Thursday, two buses from Texas carrying about 100 predominantly Venezuelan migrants were dropped off outside the home of the vice-president, Kamala Harris, in Washington.
Like DeSantis, the Republican Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has adopted a confrontational and theatrical approach to the Biden administration over immigration, sending migrants on buses to New York, Chicago and the capital, all cities with Democratic mayors.
In Massachusetts, authorities scrambled to accommodate the migrants sent by DeSantis, most of whom had no idea where they were being taken, spoke little to no English and were left to walk several miles from the airport into a nearby town to seek help. Some told aid workers they had been promised jobs and housing.
“There was no advance notice to anyone in Martha’s Vineyard or Massachusetts that these migrants were arriving, to my knowledge,” said Julian Cyr, a state senator.
[Insert: Though Fox News was given advance warning.]
The Dukes county emergency management association activated emergency shelters and other resources usually reserved for hurricanes, in order to deal with the “unexpected urgent humanitarian situation .. https://twitter.com/DukesCountyEM/status/1570214314396774400 ”.
The move is a dramatic escalation of a feud over immigration between DeSantis, who is expected to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, and the Biden administration.
Politicians in Massachusetts and Florida said the governor was exploiting human misery to score political points.
“History does not look kindly on leaders who treat human beings like cargo, loading them up and sending them a thousand miles away without telling them their destination,” the Massachusetts congressman Bill Keating said in a tweet .. https://twitter.com/USRepKeating/status/1570239574583934977 .
“Still, Florida governor Ron DeSantis made that choice today. Instead of trying to help them, [he] chose to charter a private jet and send them to a rural island community late in the day and without warning so they wouldn’t have the resources at the ready to support them.”
Other Republican governors, including Abbott and Doug Ducey of Arizona, have sent undocumented migrants to Democrat-run cities and states. Massachusetts has a Republican governor, Charlie Baker, whose spokesperson gave no indication he was informed in advance.
DeSantis’s favored news network, Fox News, was given prior knowledge, showing footage of the migrants’ arrival on Wednesday night as an “exclusive”.
“States like Massachusetts, New York and California will better facilitate the care of these individuals who they have invited into our country by incentivising illegal immigration through their designation as ‘sanctuary states’ and support for the Biden administration’s open border policies,” a DeSantis spokesperson, Taryn Fenske, said in a statement.
The Republican-held Florida legislature approved a state budget earlier this year giving DeSantis $12m for a program to deport migrants, although the Wednesday flights appeared to have originated in Texas and it was unclear if the occupants had ever been in Florida.
Other details are similarly opaque. Florida has provided no information about who the migrants are or how they were chosen, or about the logistics of the operation including the private company receiving Florida taxpayer money to fly them.
The Florida congressman Charlie Crist, the Democrat seeking to oust DeSantis in November’s midterms, blasted the move as a “heartless political stunt” intended to bolster his opponent’s wider ambitions.
“Everything Ron DeSantis does is to score political points with his hard-right base in a thinly veiled attempt to run for president, but it’s Floridians who pay the price,” Crist said in a statement.
“The 4.5m immigrants who call Florida home must be wondering if they’re next.”
Cyr, a Massachusetts state senator who represents Martha’s Vineyard, likened DeSantis’s action to racist southern segregationists relocating African American families to northern states with false promises of housing and employment half a century ago.
Texas governor’s plans to bus migrants to Capitol met with bipartisan criticism
When something Republicans do is met with bipartisan criticism you know it has to be way out of line. conix and other trolls here wee it as "brilliant", but what else to expect.
Republican Greg Abbott’s botched new policy is in response to Biden’s decision to rescind hardline Trump-era immigration policy
Texas Governor Greg Abbott speaks during a press conference at the Texas Department of Public Safety Weslaco regional office on Wednesday. Photograph: Joel Martinez/AP
Oliver Laughland @oliverlaughland Fri 8 Apr 2022 02.03 AEST Last modified on Fri 8 Apr 2022 02.05 AEST
Plans announced by Texas governor Greg Abbott that attempt to send undocumented migrants away from the southern border on buses to Washington were met with bipartisan criticism on Wednesday.
Abbott, a Republican, told reporters that the state would respond to the Biden administration’s decision to rescind a hardline Trump-era immigration policy by placing state troopers in riot gear at the border and then putting migrants on buses bound for DC.
[Insert: Voluntarily? after being lied to about destination, housing and jobs. I'd be surprised if the other is true too.]
The plans also includes measures to begin “enhanced safety inspections” of commercial vehicles coming across the Texas border with Mexico, which the governor acknowledged would “dramatically slow” traffic at the border.
The botched announcement came after the Biden administration last week said it would rescind Title 42 restrictions at the southern border. The policy, introduced by the Trump administration, allowed border officials the power to remove undocumented migrants under public health guidance before they could claim asylum. 1.7 million people had been removed from the US under the program, the majority under the Biden administration.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] announced the policy would end on 23 May as the White House plans for an increase in irregular arrivals at the border.
Beto O’Rourke, the former Democratic US congressman, who is running for Texas governor this year as Abbott faces re-election, described the announcement as a “political stunt”.
“If Abbott focused on solutions instead of stunts, then Texas could have made some real progress on this issue over the last seven years,” O’Rourke said in a statement.
In a statement reported by the Texas Tribune .. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/04/06/greg-abbott-texas-border-title-42/ , ACLU of Texas staff attorney Kate Huddleston said: “Any forcible busing of migrants across the country would be outrageous and blatantly unconstitutional. Given that Abbott cannot dictate where people are sent, he has already backpedaled on this heinous plan, announcing that it will be only voluntary.”
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