I'm sure that by now everyone has heard about DeSantis moving asylum seekers and the reaction of the people there ...

A Sadistic Immigration Stunt
Even border-security hawks should be horrified.
Tom Nichols

Ron DeSantis’s hideous political stunt is a reminder that the GOP’s policies are no longer about achieving results, but gratifying the basest impulses of MAGA voters.

Intention Matters

I am from Massachusetts, yet I have never been to Martha’s Vineyard. I now live in coastal Rhode Island, less than a hundred miles from the Vineyard, so Ron DeSantis’s idiotic and cruel attempt to dump human beings on the island during the off-season is something of a local story for me—but one that carries an important national lesson.

The Florida governor’s cartoonish assumption, apparently, was that liberal Bay Staters are just as racist as the Republican MAGA-base voters he’s trying to woo, and that they would prove it by reacting with outrage when a bunch of Latin Americans showed up on their doorstep. (He even sent a videographer, in the hopes of capturing the Vineyarders getting the vapors.) This bizarre miscalculation probably won’t help DeSantis much. As the journalist Josh Marshall said this morning, in politics, “weird can sometimes be worse than wrong.” In any case, the show was a fizzle: The locals provided the migrants with food and shelter, and sent students from an AP Spanish class at the local high school as translators.

I’m proud of my fellow New Englanders for their reaction to ....

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters ... nt/671470/

I suggest everyone read that entire article if you haven't. Perhaps we need more journalism like this.

He shows how an issue like immigration is not simple, how politicians of both parties have struggled with it, and how a stunt like the one DeSantis pulled does nothing to solve it.

Yes, it wasn't intended to solve the problem. Just a big middle finger to anyone that thinks human beings should be treated with some dignity.

For some reason this reminds me of a South Park episode where they bussed all their homeless people to another town with lofty promises. Life imitating art.

#6

Pamphlet says "refugee", not "immigrant".

More like the "Reverse Freedom Rides" of 1962

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch ... edom-rides

https://www.jstor.org/stable/27557516

#10 should prove to be interesting.

And it's not just the migrants who are suing DeSantis

DeSantis Sued By Florida State Senator—Here’s All The Legal Fallout He Faces For Flying Migrants To Martha’s Vineyard
Alison Durkee

Florida state Sen. Jason Pizzo (D) sued Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and other state officials Thursday over the state’s program to fly migrants to other states, the latest legal exposure DeSantis has faced after he took credit for flying approximately 50 Venezuelan migrants who were initially in Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

Pizzo, acting as a private citizen, sued DeSantis along with Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronus, the state Department of Transportation and its secretary Jared Perdue in state court, taking issue with the state’s program that uses taxpayer money to “facilitate the transport of unauthorized aliens from this state consistent with federal law” through private companies.

The lawsuit argues the state flying migrants to Martha’s Vineyard violated that measure because ...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurk ... e414ab2d21

D.C. attorney general opens investigation into Republican governors’ relocating migrants to the capital
Gov. Greg Abbott and others have been sending thousands of migrants to Washington. D.C. District Attorney General Karl Racine is investigating whether migrants have been deceived.
MARILYN W. THOMPSON AND PERLA TREVIZO

District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine has opened an investigation into whether southern border state governors misled immigrants as part of what he called a “political stunt” to transport them to Washington.

Racine told ProPublica and The Texas Tribune his office is examining whether immigrants were deceived by trip organizers before boarding buses for Washington, including several hundred who were bused from Texas under instructions from Gov. Greg Abbott and dropped near the official residence of Vice President Kamala Harris. Racine’s office has the authority to bring misdemeanor criminal charges or to file civil fraud cases.

Racine said that in interviews with his investigators, arriving immigrants “have talked persuasively about being misled, with talk about promised services.” He offered no specifics about the inquiry, including whether it is being handled by his office’s criminal or civil divisions. The attorney general’s office declined to answer further questions.

Various state and federal laws could apply to transporting immigrants across state lines. Racine’s office could look into whether anyone committed fraud by falsely promising jobs or services, whether there were civil rights violations or whether officials misused taxpayers’ money.

Racine’s investigation comes after weeks of escalating tensions between some Republican governors and the Biden administration over immigration policy. In April, Abbott began busing to Washington immigrants who had been processed and released by federal immigration officials, and he later expanded the initiative to New York and Chicago. To date, more than 12,000 immigrants have been relocated from border towns.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has followed Abbott’s lead and ...

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/10/14 ... stigation/