Florida Governor Ron DeSantis waves as he arrives for a news conference on September 7.
Rebecca Blackwell / AP
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Rebecca Blackwell / AP
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis waves as he arrives for a news conference on September 7.
Rebecca Blackwell / AP
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis claimed victory this weekend for his controversial flight that brought migrants to the tony island northeast of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
“This is a crisis. It’s getting a little more attention,” DeSantis said in Kansas during one leg of a tour organized by conservative group Turning Point Action.
It’s hardly a coincidence that DeSantis’ stunt takes place a few days before his stops in Kansas and Wisconsin, where he campaigned for Republican candidates. His political ambitions were well known. He has become a conservative and a potential heir to the MAGA brand – a more disciplined version of former President Donald Trump, who continues to suggest he will run for president again in 2024.
DeSantis is also set to run for re-election in Florida this year. And nothing burns the Republican base like immigration. Trump used anti-immigrant rhetoric to propel himself to the top of the GOP presidential campaign in 2015.
Danny Diaz, a Republican strategist who ran Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign, said: “I think he’s come out of it: clearer vision. on this issue. “And the fact is, for about half of the country, they totally agree.”
DeSantis hinted that this was his goal over the last two weekend stops. He said that more people are paying attention to the issue now and that it is “on the ballot.” Judging by the news his move has received, it worked.
However, there is a danger of alienating potentially alienated voters, who see the move as pointless by not addressing the core issue and using migrants as political pawns. The migrants, who made the trip, said they felt “cheated”, “deceived” and “used for political purposes.”
“We didn’t think these people would be so cruel, cold-blooded, that they would do this to us,” Elid Aguilar, 27, of Venezuela, told San Antonio Report.
The move has echoes of the 1960s Reverse Freedom Rideswas founded by white supremacists who persuaded poor black families in the South to board a bus to Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
A Texas sheriff said Monday night he open criminal investigation into what happened.
“What we understand is that a Venezuelan migrant who was paid a birding fee to recruit 50 migrants was then lured – and I will use the word ‘seduce’ in a contrived manner – to stay in a hotel for a few days, then taken off to a plane where they flew to Florida and then to Martha’s Vineyard under the pretense of being offered a job,” said Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar, a party member. Democrats, said. “For what we can collect, a little more than a photo op, a video op, and then they’re left there.”
The migrants were staying at the Migrant Resource Center in Bexar County, where San Antonio is based.
Diaz said he views what DeSantis and other Republican governors are doing in sending migrants to more liberal states and cities as an effort to strengthen the base.
“At this point, 50 days from an election, with the entrenched on both sides and the vast majority of independents having a dim view of the economy and both sides looking to energize quality for their facilities,” says Diaz, “which is tantamount to the course of both sides.”
Immigration is not the main voting issue in these midterm elections
Inflation has been voters’ top concern, according to Latest NPR /PBS News/ Marist poll. Abortion rights are the top voting issue for Democrats. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wadereproductive rights shook the electoral landscape and increased the enthusiasm of Democrats.
Still, immigration is the #2 issue for Republicans, with more than a fifth identifying it as their top issue. Only 1% of Democrats and 8% of independents said it was theirs.
“We need solutions, not theatres,” Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, said on CBS’ Facing the nation on Sunday. “Migrants are human, and we must treat them like human beings. They are being used as political pawns to get publicity.”
Still, immigration is a sore issue, especially in border communities like the county that Cuellar represents in Texas. United States on Monday surpassing 2 million migrants arrested this year on the southern border, the most ever. Cuellar says more needs to be done, including making immigration enforcement public.
“When was the last time you saw – when did you see people’s photos or videos?” he say. “You just see people coming in. And you have to have the words, along with the action to execute it.”
Others argue that the Biden administration is having a bad rap.
“I believe this administration is unfair, lax in border enforcement,” former Obama Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said. Facing the nation.
He noted that the US has been “sending more than 100,000 people a month” over the past two years. That goes to more than 2 million people, he said.
Johnson argues that some of this is messaging.
“The lesson I learned from managing this problem is that you have to repeat yourself 25 times before anyone listens to you,” he says. “You have to show that we are in fact bringing people back.”
Reactions to DeSantis’ move have varied
Conservatives have been cheering it on predictably. They did so quite literally, earning DeSantis in Kansas a standing ovation when he mentioned it. They see the move as pointing to liberal hypocrisy in creating “sanctuary cities” and statehood in places that don’t deal with the influx of people as many border states are seeing.
Democrats and progressives point to local communities, state governments, and nonprofits scramble to help migrants in Martha’s Vineyard and in places like the District of Columbia, where Texas Governor Greg Abbott has also sent migrant buses over the past few months.
That is far from Attract people get on a plane with fake promotional material and promises of “sanctuary” and work in Boston when nothing is guaranteed.
Hardly anyone thinks that the immigration system in the US is not broken. Americans do not see any political party that is solving the problem perfectly.
But the Republican Party has undergone many political developments in the past decade alone. The GOP has come a long way from having a president pushing for immigration reform to a president using it as a political soccer ball.
If so, few Republicans left in Congress are seriously interested in fixing the immigration system to put on a path to legalization for the millions of illegal immigrants entering the United States.
The last congressional session in recent years was nearly a decade ago, in 2013, 68 senators, including 14 Republicans, voted for an immigration overhaul before the Conservatives in the House of Representatives kill it.
Many recent efforts have failed to make progress, especially with such a narrow Democratic majority in the US Senate.
“We can make the border secure and have a legal entry system into the United States that works, get these people on the books, have them pay their taxes, make sure we’ve done the audits,” he said. background check,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D -I will., said on NBC’s Meet the press. “All of these things are doable. Are they controversial? You bet. Some of them are very controversial. But we know we need to do it. The United States is a country. I’m proud to be the son of an immigrant who came to this country. But I’ll tell you, if we make it in this day and age, we can’t wait another 30 years. more to find a solution.”
