Ron DeSantis’ Martha’s Vineyard stunt cruelly uses migrants as human pawns, helping no one
Brace yourselves, I’m about to believe two things at once.
First, I believe that Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to use Florida taxpayers’ money to fly two planes of Venezuelan migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, dumping them on the island without advance notice, is morally reprehensible and an inhumane political stunt.
Second, I believe that America’s immigration system is a mess, and that the Biden administration, like the Trump administration before it, has failed to establish a sensible, humane system to handle the massive influx of migrants and asylum seekers arriving at our borders seeking a better and safer life.
DeSantis wants to ‘own the libs’ all the way to the White House
See, I did it. It’s possible to believe that America’s immigration system is broken and creating a humanitarian crisis while also condemning the behavior of governors using planes and buses to shuttle men, women and children across the country like cattle to score political points among people aroused by cruelty.
DeSantis – who seems to believe he can ride an “own the libs” attitude to the White House – was apparently watching Texas Gov. Greg Abbott with envy as Abbott grabbed headlines for rounding up asylum-seeking migrants and putting them on buses to cities like Washington, D.C., New York and Chicago, all of which are, of course, run by Democrats.
Stand united: Hate-fueled violence is ripping apart our cities and nation. We need to stop it.
While border states have ample reason to be fed up with the federal government’s response to record-breaking illegal border crossings, Abbott’s migrant-busing program has all the subtlety of a frat-house prank – it’s funny to those amused by cruel, lowest-common-denominator jokes, but nobody with a scrap of compassion is laughing.
Did Florida’s governor follow Tucker Carlson’s marching orders?
So along comes Florida’s DeSantis, a man who seems to take governing inspiration from right-wing Twitter memes, with a plan to REALLY stick it to those northern liberals by flying people who have already endured untold horrors fleeing their home country to Martha’s Vineyard, a largely liberal place Fox News hosts love to assail.