The transportation of immigrants by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis may be a “cute” stunt, but it helped shine a light on the United States’s need for immigration reform along the border, Hispanic Republicans say.
DeSantis sent roughly 50 immigrants, including children, to Martha’s Vineyard Airport in Massachusetts on Wednesday, mirroring a similar strategy Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has practiced in busing immigrants to cities including Washington, D.C., and New York. On Thursday, Abbott also approved the drop-off of two busloads of immigrants near Vice President Kamala Harris’s residence in the Naval Observatory.
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“It’s cute on the surface,” said Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), according to the Hill. “But what worries me is the normalcy of what is happening on the border. There’s nothing normal about it — busing people, flying people, nothing normal about that. We have to be careful about turning politics into policy. And that’s what I see. I see it’s so close to the midterms, and it’s just dangerous.”
Gonzales added that he believes “everybody wants to bus or fly people all over the country” instead of bringing attention to the U.S.’s “broken” immigration system, arguing, “We have to fix it.”
Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) echoed Gonzales, claiming that “the Biden administration is failing America by not controlling the border” and that DeSantis is showcasing the administration’s failure with the transportation of immigrants.
President Joe Biden and other Democrats have condemned the busing by both Abbott and DeSantis, with Biden arguing the governors are “playing politics with human beings, using them as props.”
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“What they’re doing is simply wrong,” Biden said Thursday. “It’s un-American, it’s reckless, and we have a process in place to manage migrants at the border.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has requested that Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice investigate the transportation of immigrants to blue cities, calling the practice an “inhumane” stunt.
