DeSantis's move was a blatant political stunt designed to own the libs and nothing more. He didn't even pull immigrants off the streets of Florida, but instead spent Floridians' tax dollars on using false promises to induce immigrants from Texas to hop on a chartered plane to Massachusetts.
Yes, immigration is a problem in this country. However, the most recent attempt at bipartisan reform was tanked by GOP hardliners in the House after it passed in the Senate because they didn't want to hand Obama a big victory or deprive themselves of potent wedge issue. The GOP has been driving our politics into the gutter for a while now. Trump elevated what was a already strong tendency into an art form. As Adam Serwer so aptly observed, the cruelty is the point. DeSantis reinforced it.
The immigration 'reform' you speak of was tanked because the American people were against it. At that time, every single entity with any power was in favor of selling the country down the river in a farcical 'bipartisan immigration deal', and then Eric Cantor lost in Virginia, and Republicans suddenly remembered what side their bread is buttered on.
Some of the American people were against it--the ones who vote for far right Republican candidates and think any kind of compromise with Americans who don't necessarily share their beliefs is selling out. They're also known as the current Republican base, who constitute maybe 30% of the voting public. They are the Republicans most likely to vote in primaries, which is why there are so many Big Lie conspiracists on the November ballot.
The thing that should be discussed more on the right is how well this played to and was received by the white evangelical crowd. The cruelty is the point. As a member of that crowd I’m dismayed yet again.
In my mind, it's only cruelty if one acts against the interests of every major institution in this country, all of which have taken a position in favor of open borders.
Here is my overarching point: It is pointless for conservatives to agree with any liberal, ever, on what behavior is acceptable. Mr. DeSantis got an appropriation to let liberal sanctuary areas have a go at helping deal with this problem. (I will bet that MV is a sanctuary town/city.) Bussing and flying the immigrants is one way to show the whole sanctuary policies of these urban areas are indeed merely performative liberalism.
To paraphrase Victor Davis Hanson: The only real function of liberal policy making is to enforce laws, rules, mandates on others that the liberals themselves do not have suffer under.
And here's the opposite rule: It is pointless for liberals to agree with any MAGAite, ever, on what behavior is acceptable because MAGAites have lost all moral compass.
Couldn't DeSantis find any asylum seekers in Florida? Why did he need to spend Florida taxpayers' money on rounding them up in Texas and putting them on an expensive charter flight? Isn't Abbott doing a good enough job on his own?
Martha's Vineyard is not a sanctuary jurisdiction; it is famously a vacation spot for wealthy people, leading me to conclude that Mr DeSantis was more interested in 'pwning rich liberals' than making a sanctuary jurisdiction come face-to-face with actual immigrants.
Boston _is_ a sanctuary city, but it has the disadvantage of large, extant, infrastructure to deal with immigrants, so the chance of problems on arrival would have been much lower.
Please define “open borders”. I admit I don’t know exactly what people mean when they say that because to me open borders is literally letting anyone who wants in to come in and I don’t know many, liberal or conservative, who favor that.
And that is politics. For over 75 years the Republican Party has been gulled into thinking that liberals are honest brokers, that any compromise is an honest attempt to solve any problem. That isn't true, and there should be in the words of Mrs. Shlafly "A Choice, Not an Echo".
Nope sorry. Politics is about compromise, especially when your side represents the minority of voters. The GOP has become the party of obstruction without a political program other than saying 'no" and 'lower taxes." And "overturn Roe," although now that they've succeeded in doing so, they've realized that, even in Red States, the decision is deeply unpopular, which is why they tried so hard in Michigan to keep the question off the ballot. So much for "leave it to the states and the people" to decide the question.
The Republicans held both houses during Trump's first two years and the only major legislation they passed were tax breaks that predominantly benefitted the richest Americans. They didn't even attempt to forge an immigration bill or get money for Trump's beloved wall (hint: Trump never really cared that much about the wall; it was a great applause line at rallies).
I’m probably the only Latina immigrant posting here. And this article has made me really angry and nauseated. (I apologize for the stream of consciousness rant below).
I’m a registered Democrat. I worked for the Democratic Party briefly after law school. I have voted for every Democrat president. I cannot be called “conservative” nor “Republican”. I had my own pro bono law practice in West Harlem, instead of joining a “white shoe” law firm. I cannot be called “unfeeling”.
And it turns my stomach to see all these White liberals moaning about DeSantis and his “cruel” tactics.
Well, I could not care less what tactics are used by what politician, as long as this issue of unceasing migrants is addressed. We are drowning here in NYC, in the Bronx, Queens and upper Manhattan! Relatives in Florida are overwhelmed. Friends and family in L.A. are feeling the same. And, Texas, well forget about Latinos at the border voting for Democrats again anytime soon.
Our schools are cramped. Our hospital emergency rooms are dangerous. And worst of all, our younger relatives now have to compete for housing, even more than before! My best friend’s son was planning a wedding and looking for an apartment in the Bronx. Well, that is not gonna happen now. There are too many migrants all over, competing, seeking to rent the same apartments in groups, through “sponsors” (“kind” White peoples who cluelessly don’t realize how they’re hurting the rest of us). There will be thousands upon thousands of more homeless; a recession is coming, with inevitable unemployment for the lower rungs, and these people will be competing for jobs with those already legally here, and keeping wages lower than they should be.
How is this not a huge American tragedy? A tragedy for legal, voting, poor Americans…Just because Biden decided to stop the “remain in Mexico” & all he rest of Mayorkas’ careless stupidities.
Yes, I do want all of you White people to stop talking. Stop with your “oh this is horrible” b.s. (By the way, all the migrants I’ve spoken to are very happy to have been shipped/bussed out of the border. No one is complaining except the ones who have been picked off by ambulance chasers for a claim of “kidnapping” — good luck with that case, boys, it’s an expensive stinker; no jury with one Latino in it will find in your favor, and the cases will not be settled).
And I cannot even begin to express the immense anger and sense of betrayal being felt by all my pro-bono immigration clients who have legally-petitioned for relatives & have been waiting for years — and now they have to see migrants who have not gone through the system legally — jumping the line! And being feted and given all sorts of things! Do you folks even realize how the Dems are losing a generation of legal Latino votes with this open border, “let us welcome them” b.s.?!
So yeah, White people: Until your neighborhoods, schools, and hospitals are swamped, and you take a family into your home, and ask Biden to stop this — I ask you to please shut up.
How dare you weep for migrants online and do nothing of substance off line? How dare you criticize those who are trying to call attention to this desperate situation — a situation no one here wrote about until the “DeSantis stunt”…?
Well, we who are suffering due to this mass migration are grateful for DeSantis. Even us Democrats.
How about you all shut up until you do something substantive? Like asking Biden to close the border. Keep them in Mexico until petition approval, after severely tightening asylum claims.
Anything else is simply hurting Americans. Hurting people who actually vote and pay taxes here in America. We will not see another Democrat president while this is going on at the border.
Please, think of us Americans suffering under this onslaught, before you weep for people from other countries.
Any suggestion on how Biden is going to stop the flow? Record numbers of people have been apprehended at the border and returned. Border security has been enhanced. Stunts like the ones Abbott and DeSantis pulled do nothing to solve the problem. What kind of substantial policy positions have they put forth to improve things. Where's their willingness to work with moderate Democrats to come up with bipartisan solutions. The Democrats have work to do as well. The embrace of "open borders" by its progressive wing is lunacy.
3) increase number of immigration judges (the backlog is huge).
4) do not release anyone before full immigration process is complete (more money needed to create housing for those with pending petitions). Deport anyone whose petition/application was denied.
I am not an expert on border policies, but those are some things that may help.
(1) I disagree with the remain in Mexico program, which strikes me as creating more problems than it solves, unless the U.S. is willing to help pay to keep asylum seekers there.
(2) The budgets for border patrol and improved technology have been increased, but I'd be happy to see the funding increased further by taking money from our bloated defense budget.
(3) Democrats have advocated for increasing the number of immigration judges. Republicans have obstructed.
(4) This policy could be workable if the number of immigration judges was increased.
Like most issues, immigration would be much better handled if extremes on both sides could be mediated. Stunts like those pulled by Abbott and DeSantis make for great campaign commercials (both men are up for re-election this year). But they do nothing to ease the hyperpartisan climate in this country or lay the groundwork for possible solutions.
1) Yes, of course the U.S. would need to pay Mexico for housing, or create housing here. For example, during the Mariel boatlift all arriving Cubans were put into military bases (that whole story caused Clinton his Arkansas re-election). At the bases they were processed, often with FBI doing the interviewing and CIA providing info, where applicable. Many of those arriving were never let out if the FBI/CIA figured out they had committed crimes in Cuba. It was a comparatively orderly process, despite the lawlessness inside the camps. To see the difference between then and now makes me weep, for it is surely a sign of how much we have degraded the workings of our country.
2) agreed Border Patrol needs more money to hire and purchase equipment.
3) We need more judges. Agreed.
I think the key would be housing them in a secure location, whether here or in Mexico, until they are vetted and processed, however long it takes. Those who are turned down are deported — allow no one to leave the facility until their case is heard and decided. Even if it takes years.
The current mess is an international embarrassment, and is attracting migrants from all over the world. But more importantly it is alienating Latino voters away from the Dems. We Latinos make up 18% of the population, the Dems cannot win the presidency if they lose a chunk of us — and this is a disaster for the Dems.
I agree. But what can be done? There are literally millions of people looking to leave their poor, impoverished countries ruled by dictators. The US could (and most liky will) become a dictatorship that jails immigrants and this might be your answer, but if concentration camps open up, do you think you will be immune to capture because you have a law degree. Once the mill starts grinding, everyone needs to be afraid.
The only way to prevent this is to encourage other nations to educate their people, adopt Democracy, get rid of crony politics and provide a decent place where their citizens will be happy and safe to live. This probably won't happen in my time. The first thing poor people living in Mexico, central/ south America, and even Africa, Philippines south and southeast Asia need to do is to stop have so many children. Overpopulation is a major factor that contributes to poverty and it is the easiest thing to control. Look at India. It will never be a decent country until they control hyperpopulation. (Is that real word, or did I just invent it)
Until then population will be controlled the old fashioned way; World War.
Or maybe inaction is the compromise position. We are a republic, not a democracy. Where I live 90% of the people voted for the GOP. I feel exactly zero need to conform to any requirements imposed by people who I don't know and, further, people I do not respect.
In my field, all the problems have come from liberals and leftists. I do not consider liberals as worthy of any type of political cover for the choices they have imposed on me.
Politics is about debate and decision. It is also about hanging the problems caused by any change around the necks of those who caused the change, and holding liberals responsible for the messes they cause.
And that will get us absolutely nowhere, yet that is typical of the extremes. It’s hard for me to see significant differences between the far right and the far left. You don’t want to compromise. They don’t want to compromise. I think the answer to is leave anyone unwilling to look for a bipartisan way forward out of the conversation.
That the immigrants were well-treated is beside the point because that was out of the DeSantists' hands, and it's easy (at least for me) to guess that the devout hope was that they would not be well-treated once they'd arrived.
Oh, Dear! Those intolerable ruffians in the provinces are misbehaving again! Who do these Republican semi-fascists think they are? American citizens who think US immigration law should be enforced, just as it every time someone steps off an international flight into a US airport? For every cynical demagogue, there is an unsolved problem that makes people turn him into their leader. Do you know what happens when the 2 millionth illegal immigrant since Biden took office is told at the US border, "You're free to go. See you in 3 years if you show up for your hearing." For the most part, it's out of sight, and out of mind, except for the local community they're released into. Go talk to Hispanics in El Paso if you think this is just about white Trumpers. I doubt if DeSantis's stunt had the support of anyone who isn't part of the Republican base, but it certainly got your attention and Harvard law professors who say that the DOJ should indict DeSantis for kidnapping and human trafficking, ignoring real victims of real human trafficking making it through our porous border all the time. But I digress. The real news today according to our laser-focused president is that inflation and the pandemic are over, and we will go to war with China if it invades Taiwan.
Immigration is a two-prong problem. The people who DeSantis shipped to Martha's Vineyard were here legally as asylum seekers. They declared themselves and their intent to seek asylum at the border, which is why they cannot be shipped back to their country of origin until after they've had a hearing. Want to shorten the process? Support the hiring of more immigration judges to deal with the immense backlog of cases.
People who cross the border illegally are subject to immediate deportation, and the Biden administration has caught and deported millions who try to cross illegally. Many try again. Why? Perhaps we need to look at the demand side of the equation and the enterprises that are more than happy to hire illegal migrants. When I hear Republicans talking about going after the corporations who hire illegal migrants, and proposing solutions to the labor shortage, then I'll believe they've serious about trying to solve the problem as opposed to scoring quick political points with their base before a big election.
What DeSantis did was wrong, but it has brought the issue to the forefront where it belongs. I was talking about the excesses of some of the criticism, which are just as unhinged as the right's is. Kidnapping? Trafficking? Really? The asylum system is being abused by people who are fleeing bad economies, not persecution. Do you really think that most of them will be arrested and deported if they don't show up for their hearings in several years? The administration has constrained ICE from functioning as it was set up to. And of course you are right about Republican hypocrisy and cheap labor. The labor shortages can be taken care of by increasing the quotas of legal immigrants who are now waiting patiently to enter the country legally, but the resulting legal immigrants would have to be paid competitively, which just won't do for some Republican business owners.
You are 100% correct. Besides the fact that Florida has no border with Mexico and can stop boat loads of migrants from entering its shores. Besides the fact that they welcome Cuban immigrants wholeheartedly, even though they are also Hispanics and/or Latino. It had to be a political stunt and it blew up in his face when the residents of Martha's Vinyard helped these people. Did he expect them to be shot or jailed?
DeSantis's move was a blatant political stunt designed to own the libs and nothing more. He didn't even pull immigrants off the streets of Florida, but instead spent Floridians' tax dollars on using false promises to induce immigrants from Texas to hop on a chartered plane to Massachusetts.
Yes, immigration is a problem in this country. However, the most recent attempt at bipartisan reform was tanked by GOP hardliners in the House after it passed in the Senate because they didn't want to hand Obama a big victory or deprive themselves of potent wedge issue. The GOP has been driving our politics into the gutter for a while now. Trump elevated what was a already strong tendency into an art form. As Adam Serwer so aptly observed, the cruelty is the point. DeSantis reinforced it.
The immigration 'reform' you speak of was tanked because the American people were against it. At that time, every single entity with any power was in favor of selling the country down the river in a farcical 'bipartisan immigration deal', and then Eric Cantor lost in Virginia, and Republicans suddenly remembered what side their bread is buttered on.
Some of the American people were against it--the ones who vote for far right Republican candidates and think any kind of compromise with Americans who don't necessarily share their beliefs is selling out. They're also known as the current Republican base, who constitute maybe 30% of the voting public. They are the Republicans most likely to vote in primaries, which is why there are so many Big Lie conspiracists on the November ballot.
Another escalation of the Cold Uncivil War.
The thing that should be discussed more on the right is how well this played to and was received by the white evangelical crowd. The cruelty is the point. As a member of that crowd I’m dismayed yet again.
Well said.
Mr. mel ladi said to tell you “Agreed, my distant cousin.” His family name ends in “body”, too.
In my mind, it's only cruelty if one acts against the interests of every major institution in this country, all of which have taken a position in favor of open borders.
Here is my overarching point: It is pointless for conservatives to agree with any liberal, ever, on what behavior is acceptable. Mr. DeSantis got an appropriation to let liberal sanctuary areas have a go at helping deal with this problem. (I will bet that MV is a sanctuary town/city.) Bussing and flying the immigrants is one way to show the whole sanctuary policies of these urban areas are indeed merely performative liberalism.
To paraphrase Victor Davis Hanson: The only real function of liberal policy making is to enforce laws, rules, mandates on others that the liberals themselves do not have suffer under.
And here's the opposite rule: It is pointless for liberals to agree with any MAGAite, ever, on what behavior is acceptable because MAGAites have lost all moral compass.
Couldn't DeSantis find any asylum seekers in Florida? Why did he need to spend Florida taxpayers' money on rounding them up in Texas and putting them on an expensive charter flight? Isn't Abbott doing a good enough job on his own?
Martha's Vineyard is not a sanctuary jurisdiction; it is famously a vacation spot for wealthy people, leading me to conclude that Mr DeSantis was more interested in 'pwning rich liberals' than making a sanctuary jurisdiction come face-to-face with actual immigrants.
Boston _is_ a sanctuary city, but it has the disadvantage of large, extant, infrastructure to deal with immigrants, so the chance of problems on arrival would have been much lower.
Please define “open borders”. I admit I don’t know exactly what people mean when they say that because to me open borders is literally letting anyone who wants in to come in and I don’t know many, liberal or conservative, who favor that.
And that is politics. For over 75 years the Republican Party has been gulled into thinking that liberals are honest brokers, that any compromise is an honest attempt to solve any problem. That isn't true, and there should be in the words of Mrs. Shlafly "A Choice, Not an Echo".
Nope sorry. Politics is about compromise, especially when your side represents the minority of voters. The GOP has become the party of obstruction without a political program other than saying 'no" and 'lower taxes." And "overturn Roe," although now that they've succeeded in doing so, they've realized that, even in Red States, the decision is deeply unpopular, which is why they tried so hard in Michigan to keep the question off the ballot. So much for "leave it to the states and the people" to decide the question.
The Republicans held both houses during Trump's first two years and the only major legislation they passed were tax breaks that predominantly benefitted the richest Americans. They didn't even attempt to forge an immigration bill or get money for Trump's beloved wall (hint: Trump never really cared that much about the wall; it was a great applause line at rallies).
I’m probably the only Latina immigrant posting here. And this article has made me really angry and nauseated. (I apologize for the stream of consciousness rant below).
I’m a registered Democrat. I worked for the Democratic Party briefly after law school. I have voted for every Democrat president. I cannot be called “conservative” nor “Republican”. I had my own pro bono law practice in West Harlem, instead of joining a “white shoe” law firm. I cannot be called “unfeeling”.
And it turns my stomach to see all these White liberals moaning about DeSantis and his “cruel” tactics.
Well, I could not care less what tactics are used by what politician, as long as this issue of unceasing migrants is addressed. We are drowning here in NYC, in the Bronx, Queens and upper Manhattan! Relatives in Florida are overwhelmed. Friends and family in L.A. are feeling the same. And, Texas, well forget about Latinos at the border voting for Democrats again anytime soon.
Our schools are cramped. Our hospital emergency rooms are dangerous. And worst of all, our younger relatives now have to compete for housing, even more than before! My best friend’s son was planning a wedding and looking for an apartment in the Bronx. Well, that is not gonna happen now. There are too many migrants all over, competing, seeking to rent the same apartments in groups, through “sponsors” (“kind” White peoples who cluelessly don’t realize how they’re hurting the rest of us). There will be thousands upon thousands of more homeless; a recession is coming, with inevitable unemployment for the lower rungs, and these people will be competing for jobs with those already legally here, and keeping wages lower than they should be.
How is this not a huge American tragedy? A tragedy for legal, voting, poor Americans…Just because Biden decided to stop the “remain in Mexico” & all he rest of Mayorkas’ careless stupidities.
Yes, I do want all of you White people to stop talking. Stop with your “oh this is horrible” b.s. (By the way, all the migrants I’ve spoken to are very happy to have been shipped/bussed out of the border. No one is complaining except the ones who have been picked off by ambulance chasers for a claim of “kidnapping” — good luck with that case, boys, it’s an expensive stinker; no jury with one Latino in it will find in your favor, and the cases will not be settled).
And I cannot even begin to express the immense anger and sense of betrayal being felt by all my pro-bono immigration clients who have legally-petitioned for relatives & have been waiting for years — and now they have to see migrants who have not gone through the system legally — jumping the line! And being feted and given all sorts of things! Do you folks even realize how the Dems are losing a generation of legal Latino votes with this open border, “let us welcome them” b.s.?!
So yeah, White people: Until your neighborhoods, schools, and hospitals are swamped, and you take a family into your home, and ask Biden to stop this — I ask you to please shut up.
How dare you weep for migrants online and do nothing of substance off line? How dare you criticize those who are trying to call attention to this desperate situation — a situation no one here wrote about until the “DeSantis stunt”…?
Well, we who are suffering due to this mass migration are grateful for DeSantis. Even us Democrats.
How about you all shut up until you do something substantive? Like asking Biden to close the border. Keep them in Mexico until petition approval, after severely tightening asylum claims.
Anything else is simply hurting Americans. Hurting people who actually vote and pay taxes here in America. We will not see another Democrat president while this is going on at the border.
Please, think of us Americans suffering under this onslaught, before you weep for people from other countries.
Any suggestion on how Biden is going to stop the flow? Record numbers of people have been apprehended at the border and returned. Border security has been enhanced. Stunts like the ones Abbott and DeSantis pulled do nothing to solve the problem. What kind of substantial policy positions have they put forth to improve things. Where's their willingness to work with moderate Democrats to come up with bipartisan solutions. The Democrats have work to do as well. The embrace of "open borders" by its progressive wing is lunacy.
1) Remain in Mexico policy for asylum seekers.
2) increase border patrol budget & technology spending.
3) increase number of immigration judges (the backlog is huge).
4) do not release anyone before full immigration process is complete (more money needed to create housing for those with pending petitions). Deport anyone whose petition/application was denied.
I am not an expert on border policies, but those are some things that may help.
(1) I disagree with the remain in Mexico program, which strikes me as creating more problems than it solves, unless the U.S. is willing to help pay to keep asylum seekers there.
(2) The budgets for border patrol and improved technology have been increased, but I'd be happy to see the funding increased further by taking money from our bloated defense budget.
(3) Democrats have advocated for increasing the number of immigration judges. Republicans have obstructed.
(4) This policy could be workable if the number of immigration judges was increased.
Like most issues, immigration would be much better handled if extremes on both sides could be mediated. Stunts like those pulled by Abbott and DeSantis make for great campaign commercials (both men are up for re-election this year). But they do nothing to ease the hyperpartisan climate in this country or lay the groundwork for possible solutions.
1) Yes, of course the U.S. would need to pay Mexico for housing, or create housing here. For example, during the Mariel boatlift all arriving Cubans were put into military bases (that whole story caused Clinton his Arkansas re-election). At the bases they were processed, often with FBI doing the interviewing and CIA providing info, where applicable. Many of those arriving were never let out if the FBI/CIA figured out they had committed crimes in Cuba. It was a comparatively orderly process, despite the lawlessness inside the camps. To see the difference between then and now makes me weep, for it is surely a sign of how much we have degraded the workings of our country.
2) agreed Border Patrol needs more money to hire and purchase equipment.
3) We need more judges. Agreed.
I think the key would be housing them in a secure location, whether here or in Mexico, until they are vetted and processed, however long it takes. Those who are turned down are deported — allow no one to leave the facility until their case is heard and decided. Even if it takes years.
The current mess is an international embarrassment, and is attracting migrants from all over the world. But more importantly it is alienating Latino voters away from the Dems. We Latinos make up 18% of the population, the Dems cannot win the presidency if they lose a chunk of us — and this is a disaster for the Dems.
It is a disaster for Democrats.
Very few Democrats favor open borders.
I agree. But what can be done? There are literally millions of people looking to leave their poor, impoverished countries ruled by dictators. The US could (and most liky will) become a dictatorship that jails immigrants and this might be your answer, but if concentration camps open up, do you think you will be immune to capture because you have a law degree. Once the mill starts grinding, everyone needs to be afraid.
The only way to prevent this is to encourage other nations to educate their people, adopt Democracy, get rid of crony politics and provide a decent place where their citizens will be happy and safe to live. This probably won't happen in my time. The first thing poor people living in Mexico, central/ south America, and even Africa, Philippines south and southeast Asia need to do is to stop have so many children. Overpopulation is a major factor that contributes to poverty and it is the easiest thing to control. Look at India. It will never be a decent country until they control hyperpopulation. (Is that real word, or did I just invent it)
Until then population will be controlled the old fashioned way; World War.
Or maybe inaction is the compromise position. We are a republic, not a democracy. Where I live 90% of the people voted for the GOP. I feel exactly zero need to conform to any requirements imposed by people who I don't know and, further, people I do not respect.
In my field, all the problems have come from liberals and leftists. I do not consider liberals as worthy of any type of political cover for the choices they have imposed on me.
Politics is about debate and decision. It is also about hanging the problems caused by any change around the necks of those who caused the change, and holding liberals responsible for the messes they cause.
How nice for you that you live in a bubble.
And that will get us absolutely nowhere, yet that is typical of the extremes. It’s hard for me to see significant differences between the far right and the far left. You don’t want to compromise. They don’t want to compromise. I think the answer to is leave anyone unwilling to look for a bipartisan way forward out of the conversation.
That the immigrants were well-treated is beside the point because that was out of the DeSantists' hands, and it's easy (at least for me) to guess that the devout hope was that they would not be well-treated once they'd arrived.
Oh, Dear! Those intolerable ruffians in the provinces are misbehaving again! Who do these Republican semi-fascists think they are? American citizens who think US immigration law should be enforced, just as it every time someone steps off an international flight into a US airport? For every cynical demagogue, there is an unsolved problem that makes people turn him into their leader. Do you know what happens when the 2 millionth illegal immigrant since Biden took office is told at the US border, "You're free to go. See you in 3 years if you show up for your hearing." For the most part, it's out of sight, and out of mind, except for the local community they're released into. Go talk to Hispanics in El Paso if you think this is just about white Trumpers. I doubt if DeSantis's stunt had the support of anyone who isn't part of the Republican base, but it certainly got your attention and Harvard law professors who say that the DOJ should indict DeSantis for kidnapping and human trafficking, ignoring real victims of real human trafficking making it through our porous border all the time. But I digress. The real news today according to our laser-focused president is that inflation and the pandemic are over, and we will go to war with China if it invades Taiwan.
Immigration is a two-prong problem. The people who DeSantis shipped to Martha's Vineyard were here legally as asylum seekers. They declared themselves and their intent to seek asylum at the border, which is why they cannot be shipped back to their country of origin until after they've had a hearing. Want to shorten the process? Support the hiring of more immigration judges to deal with the immense backlog of cases.
People who cross the border illegally are subject to immediate deportation, and the Biden administration has caught and deported millions who try to cross illegally. Many try again. Why? Perhaps we need to look at the demand side of the equation and the enterprises that are more than happy to hire illegal migrants. When I hear Republicans talking about going after the corporations who hire illegal migrants, and proposing solutions to the labor shortage, then I'll believe they've serious about trying to solve the problem as opposed to scoring quick political points with their base before a big election.
What DeSantis did was wrong, but it has brought the issue to the forefront where it belongs. I was talking about the excesses of some of the criticism, which are just as unhinged as the right's is. Kidnapping? Trafficking? Really? The asylum system is being abused by people who are fleeing bad economies, not persecution. Do you really think that most of them will be arrested and deported if they don't show up for their hearings in several years? The administration has constrained ICE from functioning as it was set up to. And of course you are right about Republican hypocrisy and cheap labor. The labor shortages can be taken care of by increasing the quotas of legal immigrants who are now waiting patiently to enter the country legally, but the resulting legal immigrants would have to be paid competitively, which just won't do for some Republican business owners.
You are 100% correct. Besides the fact that Florida has no border with Mexico and can stop boat loads of migrants from entering its shores. Besides the fact that they welcome Cuban immigrants wholeheartedly, even though they are also Hispanics and/or Latino. It had to be a political stunt and it blew up in his face when the residents of Martha's Vinyard helped these people. Did he expect them to be shot or jailed?