Republica Press

Your Business & Political News

REPUBLICA PRESS
Your Business & Political News

With Faraway Migrant Drop-Offs, G.O.P. Governors Are Doubling Down

by

EDGARTOWN, Mass. — Immigration lawyers rushed onto ferries to reach a quaint red church turned shelter. Students from a high school Spanish class sought to help translate. Impromptu volunteers scoured a dollar store for clothing to donate.

The frantic activity showed just how unprepared the vacation retreat of Martha’s Vineyard was for the arrival on Wednesday of nearly 50 Venezuelan migrants on planes from Texas.

“We had no inkling of what was going on,” Geoffrey Freeman, the director of the Massachusetts island’s tiny airport, said on Thursday.

send two planeloads of people to Martha’s Vineyard, and by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas to send two busloads to Vice President Kamala Harris’s residence on Thursday — roughly 150 migrants in all — were their most conspicuous attempts yet to provoke outrage over record arrivals at the border, a circumstance the Republican leaders blame squarely on President Biden.

was “nearing its breaking point” after more than 11,000 migrants arrived in the city since May.

“All those people in D.C. and New York were beating their chest when Trump was president, saying they were so proud to be sanctuary jurisdictions,” Mr. DeSantis said in the Florida Panhandle. “The minute even a small fraction of what those border towns deal with every day are brought to their front door, they all go berserk.”

wrote on Twitter. “We’re sending migrants to her backyard to call on the Biden Administration to do its job & secure the border.”

The two governors, who could someday face off as presidential primary rivals, do not appear to have coordinated their transports, though both were clearly intended to draw the attention they received.

The Texas governor’s office had previously talked with Mr. DeSantis and his aides about supporting Mr. Abbott’s existing effort to bus migrants out of Texas, said Mr. Abbott’s press secretary, Renae Eze. But Mr. DeSantis appears to have opted instead to create his own spectacle. (Ms. Eze said in a statement that the Texas governor’s office was “not involved in these initial planes to Martha’s Vineyard,” though she added that “we appreciate the support in responding to this national crisis and helping Texans.”)

In Washington, a Fox News camera was positioned near the vice president’s residence to film the drop-off, officials said; volunteers eventually took the migrants to a church. Members of the White House were particularly frustrated that Fox News had apparently been alerted, but not the city government or nonprofit organizers waiting for any potential migrants at Union Station.

The Biden administration portrayed Republicans as determined to harness anti-immigrant sentiment ahead of the congressional midterm elections. But it is unclear what action, if any, the White House can take to stop the drop-offs of migrants, many of whom plan to seek asylum in the United States and are guaranteed that right. Once migrants have been released by border officials and served documents to appear in court, they are no longer in federal custody and are free to travel across the country as they please.

more than one million migrants have entered the country, many of whom will wait months or years for hearings because of legal and procedural backlogs. More than a million were similarly admitted on a temporary basis over a two-year stretch of the Trump administration, according to data analyzed by the Migration Policy Institute; these migrants are distinct from the many who enter the country undetected.

the jungle of the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama, and later traveling across Mexico, where he said migrants were faced with “a lot of corruption.”

filling facilities meant to house adults beyond capacity. Months later, Border Patrol officials drew harsh criticism for their treatment of thousands of Haitians who had gathered under a bridge at the border.

Administration officials have said it will take time to unwind harsh policies aimed at keeping migrants out that were put in place by former President Donald J. Trump. It took Mr. Biden more than a year to eliminate a Trump-era program that forced asylum seekers to wait in squalid camps in Mexico, in part because of court rulings.

But disagreements among Mr. Biden’s immigration advisers also slowed progress as aides battled one another. The debates have prompted many of those key advisers to leave the White House.

Legislation to overhaul the nation’s immigration system, which Mr. Biden introduced on his first day as president, failed to gain traction in Congress.

approximately 6.8 million, tying with Ukraine’s exodus as the largest migration in the world. Venezuela’s economic, social and democratic crisis began in 2013; economists have called the resulting migration the worst outside of war in decades.

The two private charter flights landed in Massachusetts between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Wednesday. They flew from San Antonio to Crestview, Fla., in the state’s Panhandle, then to Spartanburg, S.C., and finally to Martha’s Vineyard, Mr. Freeman said. He could not explain the Florida and South Carolina stops; Mr. DeSantis’s office did not respond to an inquiry about them.

“No one on Martha’s Vineyard knew this plane was coming,” Mr. Freeman said.

In a statement on Thursday afternoon, Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, a Republican, said his state had “many resources for assisting individuals that arrive in Massachusetts with varying immigration statuses and needs.”

His administration, he added, was exploring setting up “temporary shelter and humanitarian services” at a Cape Cod military base.

As far back as December, Mr. DeSantis had mentioned the prospect of migrants arriving in Martha’s Vineyard to force a crackdown on illegal immigration. On Thursday, he said he was happy to facilitate their transport to “greener pastures.”

“Every community in America should be sharing in the burdens,” he said. “It shouldn’t all fall on a handful of red states.”

The people gathered in Niceville, Fla., cheered.

Will Sennott reported from Edgartown, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Eileen Sullivan from Washington, and Patricia Mazzei from Miami. Reporting was contributed by Peter Baker, Michael D. Shear and Zach Montague from Washington, J. David Goodman from Houston, Jesus Jiménez and Julie Turkewitz from New York, Miriam Jordan from Los Angeles, and Remy Tumin from Edgartown.

View

>>> Don’t Miss Today’s BEST Amazon Deals! <<<<

Terms and Conditions - Privacy Policy