That is what Governor DeSantis did when he dumped 50 undocumented immigrants on Martha's Vineyard with no warning. In the middle of the afternoon they just threw them off the plane and didn’t tell them where they were. The governor didn’t tell anyone what he was going to do and the authorities were caught blind sided.
Planeloads of Venezuelan Migrants Arrive at Martha's Vineyard Airport
Vineyard Gazette
By Brooke Kushwaha
September 14, 2022
Planes carrying 50 migrants from Venezuela and Colombia landed unexpectedly at Martha’s Vineyard Airport Wednesday afternoon. Island officials and volunteers quickly rallied to find temporary shelter for the group.“We’re immigrants,” Eliase, who said he was from Venezuela, told the Gazette. “We came here because of the situation in our country, for the economy, for work, for lots of things. I came here walking. We went through 10 different countries until we got to Texas. There a refugee association put us in a plane and told us there would be work and housing here. I feel good, despite everything. We spent four days in Texas so it’s good to be here
[…]
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis later issued a statement to media outlets confirming that the airlift "was part of the state's relocation program to transport illegal immigrants to sanctuary destinations."
The population of Martha's Vineyard is only around 15,000 residents and to drop off 50 migrants without warning taxed the support services. But unlike DeSantis the people on the island compassionately stepped up to help the immigrants.
A coalition of emergency management officials, faith groups, nonprofit agencies and county and town officials were organizing food and shelter for the migrants, who spent Wednesday night at St. Andrews Church in Edgartown. The Salvation Army, among others, was providing food.
In a news release Thursday morning, the Martha's Vineyard Humanitarian Response effort asked that inquiries about how to help be sent by email to EMD@dcsoma.org.
As word spread of the migrants' plight, a crowd of people — many eager to offer assistance — gathered outside the church. Edgartown Police Lt. Chris Dolby urged people not to deliver additional donations.
At least the governor of Texas notified the cities that they migrants were coming.
Airport director Geoff Freeman said Thursday morning that the migrants arrived on two planes belonging to the charter company Ultimate Air.
“We thought it was a typical charter,” he said, adding that private planes carrying visitors on corporate and golf retreats are common this time of year.
It wasn’t until the planes touched down that airport personnel discovered they were filled with migrants, he said.
The governor’s inhumane treatment of refugees has to be called out for what it was, a political stunt that was immoral and unconscionable to abuse a human being like that.
But the good people of Martha's Vineyard stepped up help out.
Island officials relocated the passengers to the cafeteria at Martha's Vineyard Regional High School, where they were given water bottles and fruit cups. Children were playing with chalk on the sidewalk outside.
“We are all kind of piecing the story together,” said schools superintendent Richie Smith. “We are providing water and food and things like that right now and trying to learn about the situation.”
[…]
At an emergency meeting on Zoom, Edgartown Fire Chief Alex Shaeffer said the town of Edgartown would take the lead in housing the migrants overnight. The migrants were later transported by bus to St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Edgartown.
[…]
“They came with folders with a pamphlet with our information,” said Beth Folcarelli, chief executive officer of Martha’s Vineyard Community Services. “We don’t have refugee services, I had no idea about any of this. I only found out because one of them gave me their folder. Imagine being dropped in here knowing no one. Absolutely no one. It’s heartbreaking.”
[…]
“In a typical Vineyard fashion, it is a community effort,” she said.
The New York Times wrote,
One of the migrants, who asked to be identified only as Leonel, said in Spanish that the people of Martha’s Vineyard were generous and that he “had never seen anything like it.” They gave him a pair of shoes.
“I haven’t slept well in three months,” said Leonel, who does not have any relatives or friends in the United States. “It’s been three months since I put on a new pair of pants. Or shoes.”
[...]
“While other states may be treating these vulnerable families as pawns, here in Illinois, we are treating them as people,” Mr. Pritzker [The Governor of Illinois] said in a statement.
Ken Burns had this to say on The Wrap,
In his treatment and manipulation of Venezuelan migrants as “political pawns,” Ken Burns sees similarities in the actions of Florida governor Ron DeSantis and those of Hitler in Nazi Germany. “This is coming straight out of the authoritarian playbook,” Burns said.
[...]
“Well, it’s the abstraction of human life. It’s basically saying that you can use a human life that is as valuable as yours or mine or Lynn’s and to put it in a position of becoming a political pawn in somebody’s authoritarian game. This is coming straight out of the authoritarian playbook,” he said.
The hometown paper is also speaking out against the governor's actions.
‘Sadistic lie.’ Venezuelans flown to Martha’s Vineyard search for a way off the island
Miami Herald
By Bianca Padro Ocasio
September 16, 2022
About 24 hours after they unwittingly agreed to board private planes to the island, a group of nearly 50 migrants — most, if not all, hailing from Venezuela — remained in limbo Thursday night as volunteer attorneys worked to understand their legal situations.Migrants in the group said they’d agreed to fly to Massachusetts on the promise of jobs and assistance but didn’t realize they were bound for Martha’s Vineyard. No one on the island knew they were coming and, according to their attorneys, they’d been given falsified U.S. addresses by immigration officials, perhaps ensuring that they’d be deemed in the country illegally.
[…]
“They were told there was a surprise present for them, and that there would be jobs and housing awaiting for them when they arrived. This was obviously a sadistic lie,” said Rachel Self, a Boston immigration attorney who was assisting with the migrants’ cases.
In a Rolling Stone article they wrote,
The Florida governor's anti-immigrant PR stunt was needlessly cruel. It may have also been illegal — especially if reports that migrants were misled are true
[…]
Professor Erin B. Corcoran of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies tells Rolling Stone that, like anyone in the U.S., migrants who are not being held in custody cannot be transported without voluntary and informed consent. “Consent is making a decision with full information and without duress,” she explains. “States can’t physically move immigrants like federal immigration authorities can. They can move people around if they have them in custody. States don’t have the authority to do that.”
As many other articles said, they were told they were going to Boston and lied to, it should be interesting to see if a grand jury is convened.
DeSantis did it for political gain, he want to show how tough he is and doesn’t care who he hurts, whether it is undocumented immigrants or trans children he will step on anybody who he thinks can get him the presidency. And I would like to point out that DeSantis is the great-grandson of a Italian refugee. According to the Tampa Bay Times...
Luigia Colucci left Italy in early 1917 and arrived at Ellis Island on Feb. 21. While Colucci crossed the Atlantic Ocean, the U.S. Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1917. Among other restrictions on "undesirable" immigrants, it barred illiterate people from entering the United States.
Now here is the kicker, media was waiting for them at the airport!
That's right Fox News was there on Marth's Vineyard.
In another article in the Rolling Stone said, "The flights they were put on made brief layovers in Florida and North Carolina before landing in Martha’s Vineyard, where someone on the tarmac filmed exclusive footage for Fox News."
I don’t care what your views on undocumented immigrants are you don’t treat people like that.
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Update 9/17/22 @ 5 AM
The political fallout is predictable.
The conservatives think that it is the best thing since sliced bread. While the liberals are horrified with what he did to a small community.
The conservatives think that it great that the governor tweaked a liberal bastion while the liberals think it was unconscionable to lie to the immigrants and to overwhelm the small island town that the social network couldn’t support that many people at one time.
So once again it is “me, me, me” verses “us, us, us.”
In Yahoo News the Miami Herald in an editorial wrote,
What a hoot, political supporters say. What a clever maneuver, governor. Actually, it’s as clever as it is cruel.
DeSantis is using and humiliating vulnerable human beings, people who risked their lives to escape their homeland for America, to make a political point — and further his presidential ambitions. After all, he couldn’t buy better press nationwide.
[…]
Let’s hope that backlash turns into pure outrage that Florida is joining Texas and Arizona in using human beings as pawns for political gain. It seems no coincidence that these immigrants were dropped into a swanky community where Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama own property.
The stunt is generating national coverage for the governor. Photos show the immigrants, including families and children, being greeted by surprised townspeople. The Vineyard had no idea these immigrants were coming. Martha’s Vineyard News reported the community had to scramble to open a church to house the refugees — more mercy shown there than the received in Florida.
How cruel to put any human beings in such a predicament.
So the questions are: where is DeSantis going to pull this stunt again? Was it a political gain or loss?
As for a political gain or loss, I think that it energized his base of Trump MAGA. If you read the comments on Yahoo his supporters are overflowing with glee at deriding of “snowflakes.” But, and this is an important but in Florida and I imagine in other Latinx immigrant communities there is a lot of questionings their support for DeSantis. So it boils down to how much is the Latinx immigrant community turned off be his antics.
Every immigrant in Florida should remember the pain of their first days in America. How heartbreaking it would have been to be used as a pawn by a heartless politician.
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Update 9/17/22 @ 11:00 AM
And the bill comes due to the Florida taxpayers, the Tallahassee Democrat reported...
Gov. Ron DeSantis paid $615,000 in Florida taxpayer money to relocate almost 50 Venezuelan migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard as calls intensified Friday from Democrats demanding an investigation of the action.
Democrat Charlie Crist, who is challenging DeSantis in the November governor’s race, tweeted the dollar amount after campaign researchers found the Sept. 8 payment to Destin-based Vertol Systems, a transportation services company, on the state’s transparencyflorida.gov site.
The payment was from the Florida Department of Transportation, which oversees a new, $12 million program to relocate "unauthorized aliens" from the state.
I wonder how the taxpayers from Florida feel about paying for Texas immigrants being flown to Marth's Vineyard.
~~~~~~
Update 9/17/2022 @ 5:20 PM
The immigrants speak up,
'I simply feel misled': Migrants flown to Martha's Vineyard speak out; DeSantis vows to keep relocating migrants
USA Today
By Christine Fernando and Jeannette Hinkle
September 17, 2022
After dozens of migrants arrived in Martha's Vineyard near Cape Cod, some described grueling journeys to the U.S. and feelings of uncertainty after becoming part of a national spectacle.Carlos Muños said he journeyed from Venezuela to give his four-year-old son the things he didn't have — a meaningful education, the freedom to express his opinions without fear of persecution, a job where he can earn enough money to afford food.
Muños, who was studying electrical engineering before Venezuela's economic collapse halted his studies, said he wants to go back to school and dreams that his son will also go to college some day.
[…]
After finding themselves in Martha's Vineyard, many expressed feelings of uncertainty as they wondered what may come next for them. Others, promised jobs and housing, felt lied to.
“When we got on the plane, they told us they would give us jobs, a place to live, everything,” Dela Hoz said through a translator. “The whole group is pretty upset. But they did take us to a nice place.”
"I simply feel misled because they told a lie and it has come to nothing," Pedro Luis Torrelaba, 36, said Friday.
[…]
Many migrants arrived on the island with mandatory appointments with ICE "all across the country from Washington to Florida," some as early as Monday, according to Rachel Self, an immigration attorney who lives on Martha’s Vineyard. Self said the migrants were set up to fail.
How low and how immoral will the Republican party go?
DeSantis actually had a videographer on the plane to record when they got off the plane and were met by this town people. The video was given exclusively to Fox News.
~~~~~~
Update 9/20/22 6:45 PM
The Conversation wrote this...
Governors Greg Abbott in Texas and Ron DeSantis in Florida are following the playbook of segregationists who provided one-way bus tickets to Northern cities for Black Southerners in the 1960s. At that time, the fight for racial equality was attracting national attention and support from many white Americans, inspiring some to join interracial Freedom Rides organized by civil rights groups to challenge segregation on interstate bus lines.
Then, as now, the message Southern racists aimed to send with their “reverse freedom rides” was, “Here, you love them so much, you take care of them.”
This shows how racist both Abbott and DeSantis are and DeSantis picked on the Venezuelans because there are no voting blocks in Florida that are Venezuela. An article in the Daily Beast said,
So, rather than displease the formidable Cuban American community in Florida, DeSantis went to the trouble and expense of hiring a contractor to hustle migrants into boarding his charter planes in San Antonio, Texas. And, lest the passengers include some of the record 176,000 Cubans who have arrived at the southern border by land over the past year, the contractor appears to have targeted only Venezuelans and a few Colombians.
DeSantis made a political decision not to antagonize his large Cuban voting base and instead picked on the Venezuelans.
~~~~~~
Update 9/23/22 8:00AM
It was all a political stunt for DeSantis presidential campaign run!
Insider
- Polling shows voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on immigration and border security.
- DeSantis' political stunt in Martha's Vineyard rocketed the issues to front-page news ahead of the midterms.
- Republicans welcome the change of topic from abortion and Trump.
By Kimberly Leonard and Warren Rojas
September 22, 2022
When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis orchestrated flights sending migrants and asylum seekers from San Antonio, Texas, to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, many observers saw a stunt aimed at raising the Republican's political profile ahead of a potential 2024 White House run.But according to GOP operatives, the move also gave Republicans running for Congress the opportunity to home in on illegal immigration and border security, topics they've clamored to put at the center of this fall's midterm elections.
DeSantis' timing is ideal for Republicans and allows the governor to continue casting himself as a national GOP leader that others in the party will follow.
But I think it is going to bite the Republicans in the a**!
I think those who think that the “immigration problem” is out of hand have always thought that and those who do not think the there is a problem have also no changed their mind. All his immoral stunt did was polarize the both sides more.
Republicans already knew they held an advantage on these issues even before the Martha's Vineyard controversy. Since March 2021, the National Republican Congressional Committee, which works to elect Republicans in US House races, has sent 357 emails about "Biden's Border Crisis" to reporters.
But DeSantis' Martha's Vineyard flights brought renewed interest to the matter, said a Republican familiar with House races who asked not to be named in order to speak candidly.
What they hope to do is strengthen their base.
Republicans already knew they held an advantage on these issues even before the Martha's Vineyard controversy. Since March 2021, the National Republican Congressional Committee, which works to elect Republicans in US House races, has sent 357 emails about "Biden's Border Crisis" to reporters.
But DeSantis' Martha's Vineyard flights brought renewed interest to the matter, said a Republican familiar with House races who asked not to be named in order to speak candidly.
[…]
To top it all off, Republicans are closely watching trends that show Democrats are seeing a decline in support from Hispanic voters.
It was nothing more than a political stunt at the expense of human lives. Over the last four or five years the number of hate crimes have skyrocketed!
Rise in reports of hate crimes against Latinos pushes overall number to 11-year high
Of 51 hate-motivated murders reported in 2019, 22 — almost half — were from last year's anti-Hispanic mass shooting in El Paso, Texas.
NBC News
By Suzanne Gamboa and The Associated Press
November 16, 2022
Reports of hate crimes against Latinos, including last year's shooting massacre in El Paso, Texas, increased in 2019, while the overall number of reports of hate-motivated killings hit its highest level since data began being collected in the early 1990s, an FBI report released Monday indicated.Of the 51 hate-motivated killings reported last year, 22 of the victims — almost half — died in the El Paso massacre on Aug. 3, 2019. Most of the victims were Latinos. Authorities have said the gunman was targeting Hispanics when he drove hundreds of miles to El Paso and shot multiple people at a Walmart.
[…]
Authorities said that before the attack, the gunman had posted a hate-filled racist statement decrying the "invasion" of Mexican immigrants in the United States.
That is what all the rhetoric against immigrants is doing hate crimes against Latinos and Asian is the direct results of politicians like DeSantis who milk the political divide for all that’s it worth.
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