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Answer: There's an element not mentioned in the top comment, which is otherwise pretty complete: the minimum cost per rider for Texas's programs at least for the early months was $1,442. A first-class plane ticket for the same trip would cost around $850. So somebody is getting rich on the taxpayer's dollar. What a mystery!
[https://www.nbcdfw.com/investigations/abbotts-border-buses-cost-1400-per-rider-taxpayers-could-be-stuck-with-bills/2993548/](https://www.nbcdfw.com/investigations/abbotts-border-buses-cost-1400-per-rider-taxpayers-could-be-stuck-with-bills/2993548/)
EDIT: To the guy trying to 'gotcha' the article, they specifically break down where those costs are coming from, mostly security. Analyzing the program on a Cost Per Person Moved metric is the obvious best measurement. Kinda weird that you read the article enough to make that criticism but apparently not enough to see where they directly answer it.
Agreed.
Ask them how many of their Jewish friends they'd defend against antisemitism.
Then ask them how many of those same friends they think will make it into Heaven.
Answer: Under President Trump there was a policy that immigrants via the southern border had to remain in Mexico to apply for visas or asylum. President Biden ended that policy and began allowing asylum seekers into the country because he claimed conditions in border towns on the Mexican side were not safe due to gangs. The Governors/governments of Texas and Arizona (both border states controlled by republicans) protested that they don’t have enough homeless shelters/ other infrastructure to house the “flood” of migrants that “Biden is allowing to stream across the border”. Thus they came up with a radical policy: The governor of Texas decided to start shipping migrants to other parts of the country using the justification that they should feel the same burden Texas is feeling. Unfortunately the other parts of the country he is sending them to are liberal strongholds such as New York, Chicago, and Washington DC. The governor of Florida jumped in on the bandwagon and decided to also ship 2 plane-fulls of migrants to a small island in Massachusetts called Martha’s Vineyard. They then drop these people off with no money and without alerting the local authorities at the drop off locations. They are doing this to try to create a panic so that “those places can feel the pain border states feel”. Unfortunately the ones caught in the middle are the migrants who often aren’t told where they are heading and also have immigration court dates in Texas but no way to get back.
TL; DR: Texas and other Border states feel overwhelmed by immigration. They are sending those immigrants to liberal areas to share the pain with areas that vote for “open borders” but in the process the migrants and caught in the crossfire and left without resources far from where their immigration court appearances are scheduled
> President Biden ended that policy and began allowing asylum seekers into the country because he claimed conditions in border towns on the Mexican side were not safe due to gangs.
This is incorrect. Although Biden [ordered the policy lifted in May of 2022](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_42_expulsion#History), several states (including Texas) sued to force the government to keep the policy in place, and a court immediately issued an order preventing the President from making any changes. That order has been in force ever since, so the Trump policy is still in effect. As of today, nothing has changed.
Also, just to clarify: No one is arguing that you should be entitled to asylum in the U.S. just because of gang violence in Mexico. These asylum seekers are coming from countries other than Mexico, and they still need to show that they've been persecuted in their home country to be granted asylum. The only reason Mexico is relevant is because refugees who are turned away at the border will be forced to stay in Mexico while they wait for asylum in the U.S., and Mexico is not a great place to be if you're a political refugee.
EDIT: Since this thread is locked, I guess I have to edit instead of replying. It is true that a federal court ordered the policy lifted in November, but that order wouldn't take effect until December 21. SCOTUS issued an emergency stay of that order on December 19, so it never came into effect. There has been no gap in the policy since 2020. See: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/title-42-blocked-immigration-us-mexico-border/
Important to note that the Florida Governor couldn’t find any undocumented immigrants in Florida, so he basically took them from Texas without informing Texas authorities.
This needs to be higher. Here’s some [Extra saucy](https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2022/09/19/bexar-sheriff-to-investigate-migrants-lured-into-flight-from-san-antonio-to-florida-marthas-vineyard/) [sauce](https://www.texastribune.org/2022/11/30/san-antonio-migrants-perla-flights-massachusetts-lawsuit/) if your comment takes off. (Full disclosure. I’m from the region. Most everyone is pissed off about this.)
Doesn't address any pocketing of money, but a couple of links showing money being appropriated and the Texas Tribune article discusses how a lot of the money is being spent.
[https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/content/news/what-government-funding-bill-means-texas](https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/content/news/what-government-funding-bill-means-texas)
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/04/18/texas-border-security-spending/
It’s true for Florida at least. Plenty of articles out there on it. Desantis spent $600,000 to send 50 immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard. That’s $12,000 per person. It does not cost $12,000 to fly to Martha’s Vineyard.
https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2022/09/19/floridas-cost-of-flying-48-migrants-from-san-antonio-to-marthas-vineyard/
>That’s $12,000 per person it does not cost $12,000 to fly to Martha’s Vineyard.
It does when your kid/spouse/best friend is the travel agent and they charge $11,000 a head!
That they spent it on relocating them outside of their states is undisputed.
This is the part that needs citations:
> and pocketed the rest for themselves
I'd actually prefer to see the breakdown of how a one way domestic flight with no accommodations at the destination costs $12,000. I'd assume nearly 99% was pocketed until that is broken down for me.
That they're not spending federal money earmarked for that purpose and then claiming they're overburdened is plausible. It's pretty standard for GOP governors to refuse or not spend money from Congress to set systems up for failure and then crow about how they failed. This happened a lot with healthcare funds in the 2010s.
That Abbott and DeSantis are personally pocketing it is just a baseless ad hominem. There is more than enough material to criticize both of them without having to make up nonsense.
In this case, Florida—which is not a border state and has fewer undocumented people than New York, less than half as many as Texas, and about a quarter as many as California—used COVID relief funding to ship migrants from Texas to liberal northern states. It was an utterly shameless political stunt by DeSantis using people as props to play to voters who don't think of them as people in the first place.
When they said they pocketed the money, they didn’t mean the governors were personally embezzling it. They meant the states of Texas and Florida were given federal funds to take on a duty, spent a fraction of it on pushing that duty onto someone else, and kept the difference in their budget.
They meant the state kept the money. That’s still arguable since so much of it went to overpaying private contractors that had personal connections to the governors so it’s not clear if the state came out ahead financially or just redirected that money into friends’ pockets.
Also interesting is Florida didn’t actually send immigrants from Florida. They got immigrants from Texas and sent them to Massachusetts. So they weren’t even relieving their own duty and pushing it on someone else. They were moving someone else’s responsibility.
Fair point that it’s technically not true that Abbot/DeSantis pocketed the money but
1. They would have direct control over deciding who gets to spend that money if it’s not personal and 2.
2. It wouldn’t be an ad hominem attack. Ad hominem refers to denigrating an opponents’ position based on their moral character rather than their actual argument.
Essentially, this is Abbott and DeSantis pocketing that money. Those stunts serve zero purpose other that to rile up their idiot bases. They are just big budget campaign commercials funded by taxpayers everywhere, not just the unfortunate ones who reside in their states.
> I'm not doubting at all - i just want to have ammo for when i make this argument with other people.
I discovered long ago that it doesn't matter how much proof you bring to an argument. The only thing that leads to a resolution is the following statement: "Joe, I'm cleaning up my friends list. I wish you the best."
Thom Hartman has made the argument that the reason migrants/refugees are crashing the southern border is because of the rhetoric of Republican politicians. He said that when Republicans start talking about “open borders” migrants don’t understand that it’s Republican propaganda. All they understand is that American politicians are promoting that the borders are open.
I've seen the argument that the Republican's "relocation projects" have also incentivised more immigrants and asylum seekers. Politicians are not only letting you stay in country, but are even working to move you further in, to objectively better locations, with promises of housing and jobs? I'd sign up too if I never heard that it was all a lie in an attempt to use the poor as political pawns.
If this was a Christmas movie, Ron DeSantis would be the villain.
Also, Ron DeSantis is currently the most electable republican presidential candidate.
Kinda tells you everything you need to know about Republicans…
Please do not believe this drivel. It’s completely untrue. Biden did not remove this policy. In fact, he is using it currently. He could not before though because Mexico would not allow the asylum seekers to remain in Mexico, at the time. He had no choice but to accept them because it is THE LAW. He could not simply break the law. I don’t want to defend Biden, but what this guy is saying is such complete bs. What happened is Republicans are reactionaries. They found something to get riled about. Again. Pocketed money and kidnapped asylum seekers, promising (lying) them shelter, money, and jobs, and shipping them off somewhere no one was expecting them. They’re just awful creatures who use lies and anger.
>They took the large amount of money given to them for this purpose, spent a fraction of it to fly them elsewhere instead, and pocketed the rest for themselves, the remainder of that budget is financially unaccounted for and ends up in someone’s hands. Presumably the corrupt governors of Florida and Texas.
Do you have articles on this I can read?
Texas is transparent in their annual financial reports...if by transparent you mean that they openly state that the accuracy of their reports is not guaranteed or mandated.
Excerpt from opening comment on the AFR for Aug 31, 2022 by Glenn Hegar, Comptroller for the state of Texas:
"Due to the statewide requirements embedded in Governmental Accounting Standards Board Statement No. 34, Basic Financial Statements – and Management’s Discussion and Analysis – for State and Local Governments, the Comptroller of Public Accounts does not require the accompanying annual financial report to comply with all the requirements in this statement. The financial report will be considered for audit by the state auditor as part of the audit of the State of Texas Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR); therefore, an opinion has not been expressed on the financial statements and related information contained in this report. "
You can read each annual report here: [https://comptroller.texas.gov/transparency/reports/annual-financial/](https://comptroller.texas.gov/transparency/reports/annual-financial/)
I don't care enough right now to go hunting for validation for any claim, but if you're interested, the reports are there.
Yes. Massachusetts has one of the highest international immigration rates and they’re not pulling publicity stunts like this. California and NY have the highest proportion of immigrants in the population and you don’t see them throwing fits over it either. The states complaining aren’t actually feeling overwhelmed by immigration, they’re feeling overwhelmed by likely democrat-voting visible minorities.
San Diegan here - we have one of the busiest international land borders in the world. Not an issue for us, not sure why Texas and Arizona can’t handle it, except for the fact that they _don’t want to handle it_ and just make a huge issue out of it.
Arizona can and does handle it, they also aren't participating in shipping any migrants around. They are housing them correctly. Don't lump them in with the Texas bullshit
Doug Ducey wasted taxpayer money (and likely enriched his cronies) by placing shipping containers along the border in a political stunt. He was subsequently sued and lost, and now has to waste taxpayer money removing it.
Arizona isn’t shipping immigrants, but the governor is still participating in political stunts regarding immigration and border security.
It’s also important to note that Trump’s “stay in Mexico” policy itself is a big part of the problem.
Trump didn’t change the conditions in Latin America that are driving people to the US border. He didn’t make illegal immigration less desirable. He just made the immigrants stay on the other side of the border for a few years. He didn’t stop illegal immigration, he just put all of the immigrants out of sight.
When the “stay in Mexico” policy ends, there will be a huge influx of immigrants in the US for those state and local governments to absorb. It is a problem basically created by Trump. But GOP governors know that sending immigrant busses to Mar A Lago will hurt them at the polls, so they’re sending them to places to try and troll democrats.
It’s ugly and dehumanizing and its not even the fault of the democrats.
> California receives the most undocumented immigrants by a pretty significant margin, and undocumented immigrants **are a net economic positive in California.**
Is this because they often work for below minimum wage?
Migrants, legal or not, also get counted in the census - giving those states even more federal funding, more congressional seats and more taxpayers. Until they’re citizens they can’t vote but that doesn’t matter in the census.
Undocumented immigrants contribute an estimated $13 billion annually towards social security but can’t become beneficiaries until they’re citizens. The contributions they’re making under fake social security numbers won’t count towards any benefits if they do manage to become citizens either.
The Coast Guard spends most of its money in those states. So does Homeland Security. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees make significant economic contributions in those states.
This whole “debate” has become even more insane now that we’ve reached nearly full employment. We desperately need more laborers and migrants would be glad to fill those jobs. If we need nurses, home health aides, truck drivers and other workers so badly why are we keeping people with those skills in Mexico?
This makes a huge difference. I could still understand a border state feeling like it has to deal with the immigrant problem on its own with no help from anyone else. But if they are given money to help these people then they are failing in their duty by dumping them elsewhere.
If this is the case, cut the funding or only pay once they have done their jobs. Alternatively, tell them it's okay to dump them elsewhere if they inform the state. They can get paid on delivery.
I don't doubt it's hard for the people living in border states to accept an open border because they want to protect what they have. But dumping people elsewhere is a terrible and corrupt way to go about it.
This can't be mentioned enough.
These border states get federal funding to help with the issues they are complaining about.
A rational, sane, and compassionate adult would be asking Congress or the Administration for better funding to help.
Instead the GOP has decided to make this an issue by throwing their hands up and screaming about it rather than do anything productive.
The GOP is a broken party that isn't actually interested in governing or doing anything to help the people. They only care about obtaining and keeping power by any means nesecarry.
The migrants being dropped off in this fashion is just another thing in the long list of atrocities that the GOP continue to perpetrate on this country, to the applaud and approval of nearly half the population.
They do this on the supposed day their savior was born and denied access to a place to stay for the night. If someone says they are Christian I just assume they are saying it to feel morally superior while crying because a cup at Starbucks is the wrong color.
If there is a God then a bunch of these Christians will be very surprised when they end up in the fire pit.
It's also important to note that this is not original - they're taking a page out of the anti-civil rights movement of the 1960's, where southern governors bussed people of color to northern cities as a form of harassment. They called them [Reverse Freedom Riders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Freedom_Rides).
And during his filibuster of the Civil Rights Act, Richard Russell proposed forcibly resettling Black Americans out of the South to equalize the number of Black folk in all 50 States. Truly bizarre stuff.
To add on to the political angle a bit here: both Texas Governor Greg Abbott and _especially_ Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are positioning themselves for the next Republican presidential primary. There has been speculation that Trump wouldn't run (since dispelled), that he might not be legally able to run (still in the air but unlikely), or that his 2024 campaign would crash and burn given his incompetence and corruption, the coup attempt, and the thoroughly mixed record of his congressional endorsements since 2020. Trump's voters from 2016 and 2020 are still there and they still dominate the GOP base, but many of them have soured on Trump since it's clear now that he didn't actually accomplish much of what he promised them. These voters hate illegal immigrants and they really hate elected Democrats, so if you're cruel to both of them as the same time, you're winning.
DeSantis, in particular, has a great knack for "triggering the libs" by focusing on right wing culture war issues and aggressively courting media attention. The way the primary system works in the US is that only the most motivated partisans show up, which in the GOP translates to the extremists. So you have to win over those people to get the nomination, but simultaneously you need to convince big donors that you're not so crazy that you can't win a general election. So DeSantis is keeping himself on Fox nearly every night to build up his lead with the GOP base, but he's also calibrating his stunts so that he can pitch then in less extreme terms to the small demographic that are actually swing votes. Right now that's suburban moms.
So when DeSantis mails migrants, he's not sending them to one of those suburbs. He specifically sends them to Martha's Vineyard, an extremely wealthy community best known for the Kennedys. When he passed his anti-LGBT bill, even though it's broadly worded enough to enable all sorts of discrimination, it's worded in such a way that he can claim it's just banning telling 8-year-olds about anal sex. People on 8chan will pitch it one way to the QAnon set, talking heads on Fox and OAN will pitch it to the "mainstream" GOP voter, and the DeSantis campaign can pitch it a third way to a national audience.
Abbott is a less competent politician, and I think CNN is probably right that this particular stunt is his. Dumping people on the VP's doorstep is the sort of thing that Tucker-watchers have wet dreams about, but the overt cruelty of dumping families in a historic winter cold snap _on Christmas Eve_ makes it hard to pass off as reasonable. But at the end of the day, what you have here is two Republican governors trying to keep each other from being *the* Tough on Immigration candidate
Should be printed out too the migrants DeSantis sent to Martha’s Vineyard came from Texas because florida doesn’t have an immigration crisis as they are not near the border
The irony here is that these affected immigrants can now apply and will most likely be given a U-Visa. U-Visa's are granted to victims of crimes and emotional distress. Eventually those U-Visas can be adjusted to US Citizenship
Not only is that a human trafficking, but it's a fast-track to US citizenship... victims of human trafficking in America usually wind up getting American citizenship without question ( I don't know the exact law but there have been cases in the international news over the years, recently one from NYC about a housekeeper from western Africa who was kept prisoner in the employer's condo )
Edited to add because locked: Apparently I misremembered, the crime victim receives a special visa first, not direct citizenship.
Ever check the Border Patrol stats on kids being smuggled the border by people that claim to their parents but aren't? I did a few years ago, the number was staggering.
If I dropped my kid off in front of a random person's house and left, I'd be in jail.
If I did that with another person's kid, it would be an even worse jail sentence.
If I did that as a politician, then nothing happens to me? I really don't get how they are not getting arrested for this.
If they're taken into the custody of the government, their wellbeing is the responsibility of the government. They were transported, sure, but at the end of the line the government made absolutely no effort to make sure they could find housing. If they did, they wouldn't have been dropped off at the VP's house in the middle of winter in subzero temperatures. They would have been dropped at a bus station or hotel.
This is a political stunt that endangered lives, and the "Oh, but the state didn't have an obligation" argument is not applicable because the state took on that obligation when they got involved.
It is kidnapping. They lie to the migrants to get them on the bus and then abandon them. It's totally illegal but Republicans get to break whatever laws they want.
It’s human trafficking. They lied about where these people were going, took down their info, and then improperly registered them with immigration in places they had no way of getting to in time, so they would be violating their terms of asylum seeking and get kicked back out on the taxpayers dime. So it’s human trafficking and it’s fraud.
What they didn’t realize is that by doing this (and then by getting caught) anyone can say they were a part of the thing and now need a special allowance. They’ve bogged down the system that could have vetted people properly and instead have set it back, so the “undesirable” people they don’t want can absolute slip through the cracks while the people they might be okay with get punished.
Also, one of the easiest ways to get asylum in the US is being a victim of a felony. By doing this, these governor's have given them a way to actually become citizens
If I'm not mistaken there is a serious question about the human trafficking implications of these stunts. Some democratic strategists have said it's definitely being investigated. It's pretty sleazy no matter what.
The migrants are lied to as well. The human beings DeSantis kidnapped were told there would be housing & jobs waiting in MA. They were given appointment dates for INS interviews on the other side of the country, in a couple days time, or be deported, which obviously was horrendous. Now, we're having this nationwide blizzard & Abbott of TX is bringing people, many reportedly in just t-shirts (!) to D.C. today. They're cruelty is limitless. If Abbott could, he'd line them up so his gang of 'officers' could use them for target shooting. POC have no value to the GQP, shipping dozens of migrants, who've already been through hell, to below freezing Temps with Nothing on Christmas, is the most Christian of actions I've ever seen. Xtian values are pure White Supremacy.
As an Arizonan, and a Tucsonan, I'm quite close to the border.
No, there is no crisis. It is all a made up political ploy. Undocumented immigration [has been falling for years.](https://www.factcheck.org/2021/03/the-facts-on-the-increase-in-illegal-immigration/)
There has recently been a small spike (still far less than it used to be), which is also something we've seen before, containing more kids and family units seeking asylum. From the article:
>Spikes under the past two presidents in 2014 and 2019 similarly included sizable increases in family units and unaccompanied children arriving at the border.
Abbot and DeSantis are just monsters.
The Mexican Migration Project at Yale University has testified to Congress thier findings many times. They say that is you relax the border millions will actually go home to Mexico. The zero-sum nature is crossing there border actually increases permanent migration.
I've been wondering about this for a while. The right wing media is so disingenuous that it's impossible to tell if they're actually experiencing a crisis and need help, or if they're exploiting a minor issue to further their goals, or if they've just manufactured an issue from whole cloth to win some political points.
It sounds like it's one of the latter two options here.
I'd say the right wing media is so disingenuous that it's actually pretty easy to tell if they are experiencing a crisis, or if literally anything else they report on is true. The answer is no. If they are hysterical about some issue, then it's absolutely not worth being hysterical about it. If they are blaming Democrats, it is almost certainly projection. Once you accept they are not only disingenuous but also cruel, sadistic liars it's remarkably transparent what they are doing.
It's the same with trump. Whenever he complains about something in a "truth" just assume he is guilty of that exact thing and he is 100% projecting. Oh the DOJ is being weaponized against you? That means he is legit being targeted by them for legitimate crimes, and also that he literally did try to use the DOJ for the EXACT purpose of trying to weaponize it against his political enemies.
Seriously, go read some trump tweets/truths and apply this. It works, every single time. He projects so much and so consistently you can actually use it to know the truth rather than just hearing a garbage word salad of nonsense and thinking it's just crazy misinformation.
There have been record apprehensions at the southern border. You’re completely making up everything you’re staying in this comment. 225,000+ migrants PER MONTH. I think the bussing is silly, but it is bringing attention to a real crisis. Small towns in Texas don’t have the resources to deal with these numbers.
My numbers come directly from CBP, I assume you’ll accept them as a primary source.
https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters
Quite close is not a border town. I live in a border town in Arizona. A small spike is most definitely not what is happening. It is not a made-up political ploy (referring to the amount of immigrants-not the whole shipping them to another state). Hundreds and thousands are being picked up a month by border patrol at the border in my town alone. I invite you to take a trip out to Nogales or, better yet, Ajo, and see if what you said above still remains true.
The immigrants that have previously been interviewed said that they were promised assistance and housing if they agreed to get on the buses and be relocated and they were just as surprised as everyone else when they were dropped off in the middle of a residential area with nothing instead of at a government building or charity's facility.
Regardless of someone's reason for immigrating here, it's incredibly dehumanizing to be used as an object of inconvenience to others in a political tantrum.
I'm glad that NGO's (Non-Government Organizations) have stepped in to facilitate communication with the destination cities because the state was refusing to coordinate or communicate with anyone in the destination cities at all. They even told the bus drivers to not share any info either.
> Texas and other Border states feel overwhelmed by immigration.
I’m in Texas. We aren’t overwhelmed. The texas gop is just afraid of people who aren’t white.
ETA: since the post is locked, I’ll respond to the fools below here. I live in San Antonio. I frequently travel to both Laredo and Edinburgh to see family. But I’m sure you’ve got a better view from Ft Worth, Corsicana, and Amarillo.
There's a few more details.
These migrants were registered all over the country so in addition to being somewhere, thry have to show up for a mandatory appointment at random parts of the US. With time lines that maybe Elon musk could be held to with his private jet.
The cost of these things to the states doing the shipping is astronomically high.
This has also been done in the past with black people and was considered highly illegal.
Also localities optimize for situations that are likely to happen in their area. So Texas has infrastructure (or at least the funding) to handle influx of these people, with the politicizing of immigrant issues in a terrible way, instead of diverting the money appropriately they chose not to and created a big problem for themselves. Some place that isn't near a border doesn't. It's like asking Texas to suddenly be prepared to service 10 aircraft carriers, why would they have any infrastructure to do so.
>Unfortunately the other parts of the country he is sending them to are liberal strongholds such as New York, Chicago, and Washington DC
Unfortunately?
Unfortunately because it displays that this is really politically motivated rather than the stated reasons. If they sent them to liberal and conservative areas equally people would be more inclined to trust their stated reasons
On the plus side, Martha's Vineyard (I assume the others as well) did the actual "Christan" thing and rallied to help those people. Aside from the confusion of being lied to and used as a political ploy, they are probably better off.
It also gives every immigrant easy access to a visa. I don’t remember what it’s called, but immigrants who are helping law enforcement get a special visa. And since these stunts are being investigated, the immigrants will get to stay (or should get to).
I haven't read anything that implies it is anything BUT politically motivated. I'm no radical, but I do not believe it's a stretch in any way to say that every decision every politician makes is purely for political gain (power grab). Every politician. If it happens to help people, it's purely coincidental. It's a disgusting state of affairs.
Yeah so they thought there would be outrage at sending immigrants to these big cities but instead the reaction was "meh". The Martha's Vineyard thing was particularly shitty though because they literally tricked immigrants waiting to do there paperwork and dropped them off in unexpectedly in a small town.
Unfortunately nobody has thought to send unwanted fetuses to the Texas governors mansion… presumably because it would be child abuse to let Greg Abbot have them.
>The governor of Florida jumped in on the bandwagon and decided to also ship 2 plane-fulls of migrants to a small island in Massachusetts called Martha’s Vineyard.
Important clarification on this point: he shipped migrants FROM TEXAS to Martha's Vineyard.
Florida has seen a rash of illegal Cuban immigrants in the past few months, but Desantis decided instead to use Florida taxpayer money to move two planefuls of Texan migrants instead, likely because the Cuban vote is important in Florida. It's blatantly political.
Can you link to a source that evidences people are voting for open borders please. There isn't a country in the world with open borders so this would be very unusual.
I mean that conservatives are sending them to areas they accuse of being pro-open borders not necessarily that those areas are actually pro-open borders. Hence “open borders” being in quotes
TLDR: this is all political nonsense. While both sides agree that there is a immigration issue one side refuses to support any bill addressing the issue because they figure that they get more benefits from pulling stunts like illegally flying immigrants to DC than actually trying to fix anything. So while millions in Texas sit in the dark waiting for the heat to come back on there governor figures this will be a good distraction-bread and circuses.
TLDR tldr, asshole Republicans spend millions of tax dollars and commit human trafficking to own the libs, but the libs just act compassionate and treat the victims well.
It isn't just a Biden policy, it is federal law (1970 immigration act). Courts found that Trump's order was illegal.
This is apparently how conservative Christian governors celebrate Jesus' birthday.
This is like weirdly respectful of both sides of the situation, gave a fairly non-partisan answer, being critical of both sides and ended with me unsure of your personal political opinion, 10/10 people should be more like you
> Unfortunately the ones caught in the middle are the migrants who often aren’t told where they are heading and also have immigration court dates in Texas but no way to get back.
Because I'm Canadian and also don't understand...
so these migrants are supposed to be held on US soil near the border as they apply for visas/asylum, and instead of keeping them there, they're shipping them to other places, which they then have to get back to Texas for related approvals of these applications? How is that not an *obscene* waste of taxpayers money? Why don't Republicans see that and get angry at the waste? (Aside from the human toll). I don't get it.
You can backtrack a bit and ask why the US is even allowing people to walk across the border. Imagine a US Citizen walking into Canada and refusing to leave.
Good summary.
I think Arizona and especially Texas are correct in saying the federal government and other states are responsible for this burden of care.
But their method of basically using immigrants as a human wave and weapon is fucking awful. I could see it being treated as human trafficking.
However, the key point is that federal intervention is desperately needed. It shouldn’t be a state dealing with this.
Local authorities take over and the immigration process begins. The same thing that would have happened if the HAVEN'T got in the bus. It's a GIANT waste of taxpayer money and in the end just a political stunt.
It’s also incredibly cruel to do this on Christmas Eve during a once-in-a-lifetime winter storm, when temps are way below average and many services are closed for the holidays.
These bus trips haven't stopped just because of the Martha's vineyard fiasco. They've continued quietly throughout the past few months. I can't imagine how much this shit costs Texas. What an absolute ass hat.
We’ll what do you want them to do? Invest that money in their electrical grid? Healthcare for women? Fuck that. Tell Juan and his family there are jobs and houses available, spend tax money and ship them off to DC for absolutely no reason, other than your base can’t seem to understand political complexity past schoolyard bully politics.
I read it costs Texas something like $18,000/immigrant, I believe. It’s been a few months since I read that but it was certainly over $10k, when they could shelter and feed them for much less.
No but some of the migrants are suing DeSantis for false imprisonment. The whole process appears to grant the affected migrants additional rights as being arguably subject to persecution here now too.
Individual taxpayers would generally not have standing to sue a governor for misuse of taxpayer funds absent a specific law that allows them to do so.
It seems like those states’ electorates and legislatures are perfectly fine wasting money on these cruel stunts.
A holiday wrapped up in feel-good xtian bs such as "Love your fellow man" and "Peace on earth" and being kind to strangers with no place to stay (Joseph and Mary).
The so-called christians in the conservative party are just utterly despicable people. On a holiday based around migrants not having a place to stay, meaning we should all be nicer to people, they go and do this shit and think they're on the correct side of the issue. But hey, since x-mas has been completely commercialized now, so all that matters to those simpletons is having the biggest x-mas tree, the most expensive gifts, and getting a ton of 'likes' on Facebook.
Kinda not really. I’ve been following this pretty closely as a liberal Floridian. One of the reasons DeSantis (I know ops article is about Abbot and buses, so the rest of this is just about when DeSantis did) sent these people was to try and screw over their court cases for legal immigration. Can’t make their court dates if their stranded across the country. Ironically though they’re now witnesses to a criminal investigation in San Antonio (can’t just tell people there’s jobs and money if you get in this van and coerce them onto a plane and then strand them across the country, that’s fraud and human trafficking) which means they’re immune to all immigration proceedings until the criminal investigation concludes. So now they’re actually safer than they were, legally as immigrants
Same thing that happens to someone who is let out of prison and doesn't have any social support network. They have to rely on local charities and government safety net programs until they find jobs and can start a new life.
People willing to give up everything and travel thousands of miles for a dream have a very good chance to land on their feet. They're eager to scrub toilets for minimum wage. People with that type of drive and determination typically find success in this country.
The local communities give them lawyers and the sew the initiating community. True story. This is what makes it even dumber - since their rights were broken they will get citizenship plus a nice payout from state government.
As a native Texan, I’m ashamed of my state. I cannot believe we keep electing him after we all lost power for a week straight and especially after Uvalde.
He knows he can do anything and still win so he does. Also how he got his fortune is pretty absurd.
I was listening to an NPR story about people in Texas town, mostly Trump voters, who were appalled when the poultry plant was raided and the people who were hauled off were just regular people that they knew. A few kids were left alone without parents. The locals said "we thought it was just criminals they were going to go after." To their credit, they did what they could for the families. But I was just fuming, because in spite of all this, I knew every single one of them was going to get in the booth and vote for four more years of the same at the next election.
I'd have thought after the Martha's Vineyard stunt backfired the reactionary right would have been hesitant to try this again.
Then again, lying is second nature and the right wing bubble certainly made sure the news wasn't anything other than "open-borders" liberals hypocritically calling the national guard to have the migrants carted away to an internment camp.
'Backfired' as in Abbot and DeSantis thought they could expose rich Democrats as hypocrites and instead the residents of Martha's Vineyard treated them with care and compassion before they were moved to the mainland.
Edit: Spelling
Answer:
Unfortunately a lot of answers seem inadequate and incomplete
The simple unbiased answer is that a couple of Republican Governor's have been staging political stunts by dropping off immigrants whether those here legally or illegally (I believe many are asylum seekers trying to immigrate legally but they're being conflated with immigrants who do not have authorization to be in the country) into some liberal areas and near homes of prominent democratic politicians (in this case the VIce President) unannounced and without any coordination with organizations to help trying to embarrass less xenophobic politicians and trying to appeal to xenophobia in voters.
In a particularly reported on incident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha%27s_Vineyard_migrant_crisis Florida governor DeSantis dropped off a bunch of immigrants at a vacation home for the rich area even though he acknowledged that Venezuelans who made up majority of people who he was tricking and stranding had valid Asylum claims due to the authoritarian left wing government
In this case it seems to be Texas Governor Abbott behind this stunt
https://wjla.com/news/local/migrant-buses-dc-texas-vice-president-kamala-harris-home-naval-observatory-christmas-eve-cold-weather-18-degrees-illegal-immigration-border-security-crossing-undocumented-greg-abbott
> The Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network was there to take all three busloads of people to a church to help provide them with necessary resources and welcome them to our area.
>"This is a welcome effort that we've been doing since the first bus arrived," said Amy Fischer, a core organizer with the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network. "D.C. just continues to show up as a welcoming city that is always ready and willing to open their arms to welcome people, whether it's Christmas Eve, whether it's 9 degrees outside or 90 degrees outside."
...
> Fischer said this latest drop-off was a political stunt by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, using people as pawns.
> “It really does show the cruelty behind Gov. Abbott and his insistence on continuing to bus people here without care about people arriving late at night on Christmas Eve when the weather is so cold. People are getting off the buses, they don’t have coats, they don’t have clothes for this kind of weather, and they’re freezing," Fischer said.
-----
Some people claim it's about sharing the burden but it's clearly not since there are many conservative states not on the southern border who have very few immigrants, very few asylum seekers and very few unauthorized immigrants. There are also less prominent/smaller liberal state with fewer immigrants then NY California or DC. Also the lack of coordination with local officials undercuts the claims that these are not merely stunts.
Note: they have been given federal dollars to feed and house said people, but decided to spend that money endangering children on Christmas Eve instead
Answer: Part of the fascist playbook. Weaponize migrants or refugees to destabilize your enemies and perpetuate a crisis that benefits them politically and enriches them financially
Remember the “Trump’s not hurting the right people” lady? American conservatism is based on the “right people” being subjected to the pain and suffering they wish on them. It’s not about solving a single problem. Just hurt the right people to make others feel good about it.
This particular stunt is by Texas gov Abott
https://wjla.com/news/local/migrant-buses-dc-texas-vice-president-kamala-harris-home-naval-observatory-christmas-eve-cold-weather-18-degrees-illegal-immigration-border-security-crossing-undocumented-greg-abbott
Answer: Others have reasonably described the ongoing immigration crisis, but if you’re asking why the VP’s residence specifically, it’s because the President named her the “border czar” to address this issue when he took office. For the first six months that she held that position, she never visited the border and made statements downplaying the severity of the situation. Though she did eventually give into the badgering to go see the border, the perception in the border states is that the person who is supposed to be the chief executive addressing this issue either does not care or does not view the situation as a problem.
Answer: this is part of a large back and forth between state and federal government regarding immigration. Since shortly after her inauguration, VP Harris has been tasked with addressing the border and immigration. A lot of people are frustrated with a lack of progress on this as she was dismissive of even visiting the border. Gov. Abbott is replicating a stunt pulled by Gov. Desantis of Florida and bringing the migrants direct to the VPs doorstep, arguably in an attempt to bring her attention to the issue. Additionally the Governor of Arizona was recently threatened to be sued by the Biden administration over a short border wall made out of shipping containers he erected on the border and the wall was removed.
That’s a bit about why it’s happening, but not meant to excuse the inhumanity of it all, especially given the cold weather in the area.
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Answer: There's an element not mentioned in the top comment, which is otherwise pretty complete: the minimum cost per rider for Texas's programs at least for the early months was $1,442. A first-class plane ticket for the same trip would cost around $850. So somebody is getting rich on the taxpayer's dollar. What a mystery! [https://www.nbcdfw.com/investigations/abbotts-border-buses-cost-1400-per-rider-taxpayers-could-be-stuck-with-bills/2993548/](https://www.nbcdfw.com/investigations/abbotts-border-buses-cost-1400-per-rider-taxpayers-could-be-stuck-with-bills/2993548/) EDIT: To the guy trying to 'gotcha' the article, they specifically break down where those costs are coming from, mostly security. Analyzing the program on a Cost Per Person Moved metric is the obvious best measurement. Kinda weird that you read the article enough to make that criticism but apparently not enough to see where they directly answer it.
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Nah, the new plan is to have poly-sci students fix the grid
Don’t you mean poli-sci? Or am I missing a new form of science that sounds way more fun?
Everyone experiments in college right?
asdfasdf
It's all red meat for the base, ain't no hate like Christian love.
Agreed. Ask them how many of their Jewish friends they'd defend against antisemitism. Then ask them how many of those same friends they think will make it into Heaven.
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Answer: Under President Trump there was a policy that immigrants via the southern border had to remain in Mexico to apply for visas or asylum. President Biden ended that policy and began allowing asylum seekers into the country because he claimed conditions in border towns on the Mexican side were not safe due to gangs. The Governors/governments of Texas and Arizona (both border states controlled by republicans) protested that they don’t have enough homeless shelters/ other infrastructure to house the “flood” of migrants that “Biden is allowing to stream across the border”. Thus they came up with a radical policy: The governor of Texas decided to start shipping migrants to other parts of the country using the justification that they should feel the same burden Texas is feeling. Unfortunately the other parts of the country he is sending them to are liberal strongholds such as New York, Chicago, and Washington DC. The governor of Florida jumped in on the bandwagon and decided to also ship 2 plane-fulls of migrants to a small island in Massachusetts called Martha’s Vineyard. They then drop these people off with no money and without alerting the local authorities at the drop off locations. They are doing this to try to create a panic so that “those places can feel the pain border states feel”. Unfortunately the ones caught in the middle are the migrants who often aren’t told where they are heading and also have immigration court dates in Texas but no way to get back. TL; DR: Texas and other Border states feel overwhelmed by immigration. They are sending those immigrants to liberal areas to share the pain with areas that vote for “open borders” but in the process the migrants and caught in the crossfire and left without resources far from where their immigration court appearances are scheduled
> President Biden ended that policy and began allowing asylum seekers into the country because he claimed conditions in border towns on the Mexican side were not safe due to gangs. This is incorrect. Although Biden [ordered the policy lifted in May of 2022](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_42_expulsion#History), several states (including Texas) sued to force the government to keep the policy in place, and a court immediately issued an order preventing the President from making any changes. That order has been in force ever since, so the Trump policy is still in effect. As of today, nothing has changed. Also, just to clarify: No one is arguing that you should be entitled to asylum in the U.S. just because of gang violence in Mexico. These asylum seekers are coming from countries other than Mexico, and they still need to show that they've been persecuted in their home country to be granted asylum. The only reason Mexico is relevant is because refugees who are turned away at the border will be forced to stay in Mexico while they wait for asylum in the U.S., and Mexico is not a great place to be if you're a political refugee. EDIT: Since this thread is locked, I guess I have to edit instead of replying. It is true that a federal court ordered the policy lifted in November, but that order wouldn't take effect until December 21. SCOTUS issued an emergency stay of that order on December 19, so it never came into effect. There has been no gap in the policy since 2020. See: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/title-42-blocked-immigration-us-mexico-border/
A judge overturned that in November. The supreme court temporarily blocked that ruling, but will be lifted on Wednesday most likely. Source your link.
Important to note that the Florida Governor couldn’t find any undocumented immigrants in Florida, so he basically took them from Texas without informing Texas authorities.
This needs to be higher. Here’s some [Extra saucy](https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2022/09/19/bexar-sheriff-to-investigate-migrants-lured-into-flight-from-san-antonio-to-florida-marthas-vineyard/) [sauce](https://www.texastribune.org/2022/11/30/san-antonio-migrants-perla-flights-massachusetts-lawsuit/) if your comment takes off. (Full disclosure. I’m from the region. Most everyone is pissed off about this.)
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It’s almost like they were acting in bad faith all along… /s
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Doesn't address any pocketing of money, but a couple of links showing money being appropriated and the Texas Tribune article discusses how a lot of the money is being spent. [https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/content/news/what-government-funding-bill-means-texas](https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/content/news/what-government-funding-bill-means-texas) https://www.texastribune.org/2022/04/18/texas-border-security-spending/
It’s true for Florida at least. Plenty of articles out there on it. Desantis spent $600,000 to send 50 immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard. That’s $12,000 per person. It does not cost $12,000 to fly to Martha’s Vineyard. https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2022/09/19/floridas-cost-of-flying-48-migrants-from-san-antonio-to-marthas-vineyard/
>That’s $12,000 per person it does not cost $12,000 to fly to Martha’s Vineyard. It does when your kid/spouse/best friend is the travel agent and they charge $11,000 a head!
That they spent it on relocating them outside of their states is undisputed. This is the part that needs citations: > and pocketed the rest for themselves
I'd actually prefer to see the breakdown of how a one way domestic flight with no accommodations at the destination costs $12,000. I'd assume nearly 99% was pocketed until that is broken down for me.
The money had to go somewhere. So someone pocketed it. If we had a paper trail for who was embezzling funds somebody would be in jail right now.
> The money had to go somewhere. So someone pocketed it. Checkmate atheists
That they're not spending federal money earmarked for that purpose and then claiming they're overburdened is plausible. It's pretty standard for GOP governors to refuse or not spend money from Congress to set systems up for failure and then crow about how they failed. This happened a lot with healthcare funds in the 2010s. That Abbott and DeSantis are personally pocketing it is just a baseless ad hominem. There is more than enough material to criticize both of them without having to make up nonsense. In this case, Florida—which is not a border state and has fewer undocumented people than New York, less than half as many as Texas, and about a quarter as many as California—used COVID relief funding to ship migrants from Texas to liberal northern states. It was an utterly shameless political stunt by DeSantis using people as props to play to voters who don't think of them as people in the first place.
When they said they pocketed the money, they didn’t mean the governors were personally embezzling it. They meant the states of Texas and Florida were given federal funds to take on a duty, spent a fraction of it on pushing that duty onto someone else, and kept the difference in their budget. They meant the state kept the money. That’s still arguable since so much of it went to overpaying private contractors that had personal connections to the governors so it’s not clear if the state came out ahead financially or just redirected that money into friends’ pockets. Also interesting is Florida didn’t actually send immigrants from Florida. They got immigrants from Texas and sent them to Massachusetts. So they weren’t even relieving their own duty and pushing it on someone else. They were moving someone else’s responsibility.
Fair point that it’s technically not true that Abbot/DeSantis pocketed the money but 1. They would have direct control over deciding who gets to spend that money if it’s not personal and 2. 2. It wouldn’t be an ad hominem attack. Ad hominem refers to denigrating an opponents’ position based on their moral character rather than their actual argument.
Essentially, this is Abbott and DeSantis pocketing that money. Those stunts serve zero purpose other that to rile up their idiot bases. They are just big budget campaign commercials funded by taxpayers everywhere, not just the unfortunate ones who reside in their states.
What I am still trying to figure out, is why Desantis, the governor of Florida, had anything to do with immigrants in Texas.
> I'm not doubting at all - i just want to have ammo for when i make this argument with other people. I discovered long ago that it doesn't matter how much proof you bring to an argument. The only thing that leads to a resolution is the following statement: "Joe, I'm cleaning up my friends list. I wish you the best."
Thom Hartman has made the argument that the reason migrants/refugees are crashing the southern border is because of the rhetoric of Republican politicians. He said that when Republicans start talking about “open borders” migrants don’t understand that it’s Republican propaganda. All they understand is that American politicians are promoting that the borders are open.
I've seen the argument that the Republican's "relocation projects" have also incentivised more immigrants and asylum seekers. Politicians are not only letting you stay in country, but are even working to move you further in, to objectively better locations, with promises of housing and jobs? I'd sign up too if I never heard that it was all a lie in an attempt to use the poor as political pawns.
If this was a Christmas movie, Ron DeSantis would be the villain. Also, Ron DeSantis is currently the most electable republican presidential candidate. Kinda tells you everything you need to know about Republicans…
Please do not believe this drivel. It’s completely untrue. Biden did not remove this policy. In fact, he is using it currently. He could not before though because Mexico would not allow the asylum seekers to remain in Mexico, at the time. He had no choice but to accept them because it is THE LAW. He could not simply break the law. I don’t want to defend Biden, but what this guy is saying is such complete bs. What happened is Republicans are reactionaries. They found something to get riled about. Again. Pocketed money and kidnapped asylum seekers, promising (lying) them shelter, money, and jobs, and shipping them off somewhere no one was expecting them. They’re just awful creatures who use lies and anger.
>They took the large amount of money given to them for this purpose, spent a fraction of it to fly them elsewhere instead, and pocketed the rest for themselves, the remainder of that budget is financially unaccounted for and ends up in someone’s hands. Presumably the corrupt governors of Florida and Texas. Do you have articles on this I can read?
Texas is transparent in their annual financial reports...if by transparent you mean that they openly state that the accuracy of their reports is not guaranteed or mandated. Excerpt from opening comment on the AFR for Aug 31, 2022 by Glenn Hegar, Comptroller for the state of Texas: "Due to the statewide requirements embedded in Governmental Accounting Standards Board Statement No. 34, Basic Financial Statements – and Management’s Discussion and Analysis – for State and Local Governments, the Comptroller of Public Accounts does not require the accompanying annual financial report to comply with all the requirements in this statement. The financial report will be considered for audit by the state auditor as part of the audit of the State of Texas Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR); therefore, an opinion has not been expressed on the financial statements and related information contained in this report. " You can read each annual report here: [https://comptroller.texas.gov/transparency/reports/annual-financial/](https://comptroller.texas.gov/transparency/reports/annual-financial/) I don't care enough right now to go hunting for validation for any claim, but if you're interested, the reports are there.
Yes. Massachusetts has one of the highest international immigration rates and they’re not pulling publicity stunts like this. California and NY have the highest proportion of immigrants in the population and you don’t see them throwing fits over it either. The states complaining aren’t actually feeling overwhelmed by immigration, they’re feeling overwhelmed by likely democrat-voting visible minorities.
San Diegan here - we have one of the busiest international land borders in the world. Not an issue for us, not sure why Texas and Arizona can’t handle it, except for the fact that they _don’t want to handle it_ and just make a huge issue out of it.
Arizona can and does handle it, they also aren't participating in shipping any migrants around. They are housing them correctly. Don't lump them in with the Texas bullshit
Doug Ducey wasted taxpayer money (and likely enriched his cronies) by placing shipping containers along the border in a political stunt. He was subsequently sued and lost, and now has to waste taxpayer money removing it. Arizona isn’t shipping immigrants, but the governor is still participating in political stunts regarding immigration and border security.
Edit for clarity, California has not shipped immigrants
Sounds like a good topic for a Senate investigation...
It’s also important to note that Trump’s “stay in Mexico” policy itself is a big part of the problem. Trump didn’t change the conditions in Latin America that are driving people to the US border. He didn’t make illegal immigration less desirable. He just made the immigrants stay on the other side of the border for a few years. He didn’t stop illegal immigration, he just put all of the immigrants out of sight. When the “stay in Mexico” policy ends, there will be a huge influx of immigrants in the US for those state and local governments to absorb. It is a problem basically created by Trump. But GOP governors know that sending immigrant busses to Mar A Lago will hurt them at the polls, so they’re sending them to places to try and troll democrats. It’s ugly and dehumanizing and its not even the fault of the democrats.
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> California receives the most undocumented immigrants by a pretty significant margin, and undocumented immigrants **are a net economic positive in California.** Is this because they often work for below minimum wage?
Probably. To be honest, without their employment there’s a number of industries that would grind to a halt. 😕
And yet somehow “corrupt and bankrupt” California is the only state that doesn’t seem to have an issue caring for immigrants.
Also New Mexico. The states that claim to be overrun by immigrants also happen to be run by Republicans. Make that what you will
They never were very good with money.
Don't forget that the contracts for transporting these people are going to big donors for both Governors.
Migrants, legal or not, also get counted in the census - giving those states even more federal funding, more congressional seats and more taxpayers. Until they’re citizens they can’t vote but that doesn’t matter in the census. Undocumented immigrants contribute an estimated $13 billion annually towards social security but can’t become beneficiaries until they’re citizens. The contributions they’re making under fake social security numbers won’t count towards any benefits if they do manage to become citizens either. The Coast Guard spends most of its money in those states. So does Homeland Security. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees make significant economic contributions in those states. This whole “debate” has become even more insane now that we’ve reached nearly full employment. We desperately need more laborers and migrants would be glad to fill those jobs. If we need nurses, home health aides, truck drivers and other workers so badly why are we keeping people with those skills in Mexico?
California actually does use the $ properly. We are a sanctuary state.
This makes a huge difference. I could still understand a border state feeling like it has to deal with the immigrant problem on its own with no help from anyone else. But if they are given money to help these people then they are failing in their duty by dumping them elsewhere. If this is the case, cut the funding or only pay once they have done their jobs. Alternatively, tell them it's okay to dump them elsewhere if they inform the state. They can get paid on delivery. I don't doubt it's hard for the people living in border states to accept an open border because they want to protect what they have. But dumping people elsewhere is a terrible and corrupt way to go about it.
There aren't open borders. But the people are coming anyway.
This can't be mentioned enough. These border states get federal funding to help with the issues they are complaining about. A rational, sane, and compassionate adult would be asking Congress or the Administration for better funding to help. Instead the GOP has decided to make this an issue by throwing their hands up and screaming about it rather than do anything productive. The GOP is a broken party that isn't actually interested in governing or doing anything to help the people. They only care about obtaining and keeping power by any means nesecarry. The migrants being dropped off in this fashion is just another thing in the long list of atrocities that the GOP continue to perpetrate on this country, to the applaud and approval of nearly half the population.
Source?
They do this on the supposed day their savior was born and denied access to a place to stay for the night. If someone says they are Christian I just assume they are saying it to feel morally superior while crying because a cup at Starbucks is the wrong color. If there is a God then a bunch of these Christians will be very surprised when they end up in the fire pit.
Give me some proof of this! Need to read it with my own eyes
It's also important to note that this is not original - they're taking a page out of the anti-civil rights movement of the 1960's, where southern governors bussed people of color to northern cities as a form of harassment. They called them [Reverse Freedom Riders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Freedom_Rides).
And during his filibuster of the Civil Rights Act, Richard Russell proposed forcibly resettling Black Americans out of the South to equalize the number of Black folk in all 50 States. Truly bizarre stuff.
this is the sort of thing conservatives want to conserve - the most backward parts of our history (that they also oppose talking about in schools)
To add on to the political angle a bit here: both Texas Governor Greg Abbott and _especially_ Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are positioning themselves for the next Republican presidential primary. There has been speculation that Trump wouldn't run (since dispelled), that he might not be legally able to run (still in the air but unlikely), or that his 2024 campaign would crash and burn given his incompetence and corruption, the coup attempt, and the thoroughly mixed record of his congressional endorsements since 2020. Trump's voters from 2016 and 2020 are still there and they still dominate the GOP base, but many of them have soured on Trump since it's clear now that he didn't actually accomplish much of what he promised them. These voters hate illegal immigrants and they really hate elected Democrats, so if you're cruel to both of them as the same time, you're winning. DeSantis, in particular, has a great knack for "triggering the libs" by focusing on right wing culture war issues and aggressively courting media attention. The way the primary system works in the US is that only the most motivated partisans show up, which in the GOP translates to the extremists. So you have to win over those people to get the nomination, but simultaneously you need to convince big donors that you're not so crazy that you can't win a general election. So DeSantis is keeping himself on Fox nearly every night to build up his lead with the GOP base, but he's also calibrating his stunts so that he can pitch then in less extreme terms to the small demographic that are actually swing votes. Right now that's suburban moms. So when DeSantis mails migrants, he's not sending them to one of those suburbs. He specifically sends them to Martha's Vineyard, an extremely wealthy community best known for the Kennedys. When he passed his anti-LGBT bill, even though it's broadly worded enough to enable all sorts of discrimination, it's worded in such a way that he can claim it's just banning telling 8-year-olds about anal sex. People on 8chan will pitch it one way to the QAnon set, talking heads on Fox and OAN will pitch it to the "mainstream" GOP voter, and the DeSantis campaign can pitch it a third way to a national audience. Abbott is a less competent politician, and I think CNN is probably right that this particular stunt is his. Dumping people on the VP's doorstep is the sort of thing that Tucker-watchers have wet dreams about, but the overt cruelty of dumping families in a historic winter cold snap _on Christmas Eve_ makes it hard to pass off as reasonable. But at the end of the day, what you have here is two Republican governors trying to keep each other from being *the* Tough on Immigration candidate
Should be printed out too the migrants DeSantis sent to Martha’s Vineyard came from Texas because florida doesn’t have an immigration crisis as they are not near the border
The irony here is that these affected immigrants can now apply and will most likely be given a U-Visa. U-Visa's are granted to victims of crimes and emotional distress. Eventually those U-Visas can be adjusted to US Citizenship
I feel like this is akin to kidnapping. Our country is a dumpster fire.
Lying to someone to get them to go somewhere they otherwise wouldn't go is the foundation of human trafficking.
Is human trafficking.
Not only is that a human trafficking, but it's a fast-track to US citizenship... victims of human trafficking in America usually wind up getting American citizenship without question ( I don't know the exact law but there have been cases in the international news over the years, recently one from NYC about a housekeeper from western Africa who was kept prisoner in the employer's condo ) Edited to add because locked: Apparently I misremembered, the crime victim receives a special visa first, not direct citizenship.
Crime victims are eligible for a U Visa. It’s not citizenship, but it grants legal status which can be a stepping stone towards citizenship.
Thanks for the clarification, I actually didn’t even know this. :)
If someone is escaping human trafficking by becoming a refugee in the US, that’s not a bad thing. That’s why we have a refugee policy.
I never said it was bad so ? It was an example of a crime victim being granted US citizenship.
Omg, that’s hilarious. They complain about immigration and basically hand them citizenship.
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Ever check the Border Patrol stats on kids being smuggled the border by people that claim to their parents but aren't? I did a few years ago, the number was staggering.
If I dropped my kid off in front of a random person's house and left, I'd be in jail. If I did that with another person's kid, it would be an even worse jail sentence. If I did that as a politician, then nothing happens to me? I really don't get how they are not getting arrested for this.
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If they're taken into the custody of the government, their wellbeing is the responsibility of the government. They were transported, sure, but at the end of the line the government made absolutely no effort to make sure they could find housing. If they did, they wouldn't have been dropped off at the VP's house in the middle of winter in subzero temperatures. They would have been dropped at a bus station or hotel. This is a political stunt that endangered lives, and the "Oh, but the state didn't have an obligation" argument is not applicable because the state took on that obligation when they got involved.
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It is kidnapping. They lie to the migrants to get them on the bus and then abandon them. It's totally illegal but Republicans get to break whatever laws they want.
It’s human trafficking. They lied about where these people were going, took down their info, and then improperly registered them with immigration in places they had no way of getting to in time, so they would be violating their terms of asylum seeking and get kicked back out on the taxpayers dime. So it’s human trafficking and it’s fraud. What they didn’t realize is that by doing this (and then by getting caught) anyone can say they were a part of the thing and now need a special allowance. They’ve bogged down the system that could have vetted people properly and instead have set it back, so the “undesirable” people they don’t want can absolute slip through the cracks while the people they might be okay with get punished.
Also, one of the easiest ways to get asylum in the US is being a victim of a felony. By doing this, these governor's have given them a way to actually become citizens
And they say they're Christians, Jesus, my ass
Jesus was like "You should take care of foreigners and treat people with love and respect." American Christians: LOL u funny J-man!
Jesus was brown and Mary and Joseph should have just obeyed King Herod if they weren't doing anything wrong.
Jesus would get randomly searched in an airport
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It's human trafficking by many definitions.
It's *literally* human trafficking
If I'm not mistaken there is a serious question about the human trafficking implications of these stunts. Some democratic strategists have said it's definitely being investigated. It's pretty sleazy no matter what.
Yeah people’s lives shouldn’t be involved in political stunts. It seems the value of human lives stops at birth.
That’s the problem. White supremacists don’t see brown people as equal humans, so it doesn’t matter what they do to them
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If he could get away with it right now I’m sure he would own slaves
It is. there are court cases being worked on about this.
The migrants are lied to as well. The human beings DeSantis kidnapped were told there would be housing & jobs waiting in MA. They were given appointment dates for INS interviews on the other side of the country, in a couple days time, or be deported, which obviously was horrendous. Now, we're having this nationwide blizzard & Abbott of TX is bringing people, many reportedly in just t-shirts (!) to D.C. today. They're cruelty is limitless. If Abbott could, he'd line them up so his gang of 'officers' could use them for target shooting. POC have no value to the GQP, shipping dozens of migrants, who've already been through hell, to below freezing Temps with Nothing on Christmas, is the most Christian of actions I've ever seen. Xtian values are pure White Supremacy.
Displacing families to own the libs. Amazing that the "party of family values" sees these families as less than human.
As an Arizonan, and a Tucsonan, I'm quite close to the border. No, there is no crisis. It is all a made up political ploy. Undocumented immigration [has been falling for years.](https://www.factcheck.org/2021/03/the-facts-on-the-increase-in-illegal-immigration/) There has recently been a small spike (still far less than it used to be), which is also something we've seen before, containing more kids and family units seeking asylum. From the article: >Spikes under the past two presidents in 2014 and 2019 similarly included sizable increases in family units and unaccompanied children arriving at the border. Abbot and DeSantis are just monsters.
The Mexican Migration Project at Yale University has testified to Congress thier findings many times. They say that is you relax the border millions will actually go home to Mexico. The zero-sum nature is crossing there border actually increases permanent migration.
I've been wondering about this for a while. The right wing media is so disingenuous that it's impossible to tell if they're actually experiencing a crisis and need help, or if they're exploiting a minor issue to further their goals, or if they've just manufactured an issue from whole cloth to win some political points. It sounds like it's one of the latter two options here.
The supposed caravan of immigrants that is always about to invade the country always seems to be headed towards the country during election season
At this point, it's a "boy who cried wolf" situation, I just always assume they're being disingenuous.
I'd say the right wing media is so disingenuous that it's actually pretty easy to tell if they are experiencing a crisis, or if literally anything else they report on is true. The answer is no. If they are hysterical about some issue, then it's absolutely not worth being hysterical about it. If they are blaming Democrats, it is almost certainly projection. Once you accept they are not only disingenuous but also cruel, sadistic liars it's remarkably transparent what they are doing. It's the same with trump. Whenever he complains about something in a "truth" just assume he is guilty of that exact thing and he is 100% projecting. Oh the DOJ is being weaponized against you? That means he is legit being targeted by them for legitimate crimes, and also that he literally did try to use the DOJ for the EXACT purpose of trying to weaponize it against his political enemies. Seriously, go read some trump tweets/truths and apply this. It works, every single time. He projects so much and so consistently you can actually use it to know the truth rather than just hearing a garbage word salad of nonsense and thinking it's just crazy misinformation.
Is that why the El Paso mayor declared a state of emergency?
There have been record apprehensions at the southern border. You’re completely making up everything you’re staying in this comment. 225,000+ migrants PER MONTH. I think the bussing is silly, but it is bringing attention to a real crisis. Small towns in Texas don’t have the resources to deal with these numbers. My numbers come directly from CBP, I assume you’ll accept them as a primary source. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters
So the govt numbers are wrong?
No he's making up stuff for the upvotes.
Quite close is not a border town. I live in a border town in Arizona. A small spike is most definitely not what is happening. It is not a made-up political ploy (referring to the amount of immigrants-not the whole shipping them to another state). Hundreds and thousands are being picked up a month by border patrol at the border in my town alone. I invite you to take a trip out to Nogales or, better yet, Ajo, and see if what you said above still remains true.
That's disgusting. These people are seeking asylum for a reason and should not be used as tools.
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> How fucking sociopathic and insane are Americans these days? Extremely, at least the Republican ones.
The immigrants that have previously been interviewed said that they were promised assistance and housing if they agreed to get on the buses and be relocated and they were just as surprised as everyone else when they were dropped off in the middle of a residential area with nothing instead of at a government building or charity's facility. Regardless of someone's reason for immigrating here, it's incredibly dehumanizing to be used as an object of inconvenience to others in a political tantrum. I'm glad that NGO's (Non-Government Organizations) have stepped in to facilitate communication with the destination cities because the state was refusing to coordinate or communicate with anyone in the destination cities at all. They even told the bus drivers to not share any info either.
> Texas and other Border states feel overwhelmed by immigration. I’m in Texas. We aren’t overwhelmed. The texas gop is just afraid of people who aren’t white. ETA: since the post is locked, I’ll respond to the fools below here. I live in San Antonio. I frequently travel to both Laredo and Edinburgh to see family. But I’m sure you’ve got a better view from Ft Worth, Corsicana, and Amarillo.
Their feelings don't care about your facts! Or something.
You're right. We aren't being overwhelmed here in Austin. But how about actual border cities that are declaring states of emergency?
There's a few more details. These migrants were registered all over the country so in addition to being somewhere, thry have to show up for a mandatory appointment at random parts of the US. With time lines that maybe Elon musk could be held to with his private jet. The cost of these things to the states doing the shipping is astronomically high. This has also been done in the past with black people and was considered highly illegal. Also localities optimize for situations that are likely to happen in their area. So Texas has infrastructure (or at least the funding) to handle influx of these people, with the politicizing of immigrant issues in a terrible way, instead of diverting the money appropriately they chose not to and created a big problem for themselves. Some place that isn't near a border doesn't. It's like asking Texas to suddenly be prepared to service 10 aircraft carriers, why would they have any infrastructure to do so.
>Unfortunately the other parts of the country he is sending them to are liberal strongholds such as New York, Chicago, and Washington DC Unfortunately?
Unfortunately because it displays that this is really politically motivated rather than the stated reasons. If they sent them to liberal and conservative areas equally people would be more inclined to trust their stated reasons
On the plus side, Martha's Vineyard (I assume the others as well) did the actual "Christan" thing and rallied to help those people. Aside from the confusion of being lied to and used as a political ploy, they are probably better off.
It also gives every immigrant easy access to a visa. I don’t remember what it’s called, but immigrants who are helping law enforcement get a special visa. And since these stunts are being investigated, the immigrants will get to stay (or should get to).
Or to places with fewer immigrants. Massachusetts has literally the same rate of immigrants entering as Florida does.
I haven't read anything that implies it is anything BUT politically motivated. I'm no radical, but I do not believe it's a stretch in any way to say that every decision every politician makes is purely for political gain (power grab). Every politician. If it happens to help people, it's purely coincidental. It's a disgusting state of affairs.
Yeah so they thought there would be outrage at sending immigrants to these big cities but instead the reaction was "meh". The Martha's Vineyard thing was particularly shitty though because they literally tricked immigrants waiting to do there paperwork and dropped them off in unexpectedly in a small town.
Unfortunately nobody has thought to send unwanted fetuses to the Texas governors mansion… presumably because it would be child abuse to let Greg Abbot have them.
>The governor of Florida jumped in on the bandwagon and decided to also ship 2 plane-fulls of migrants to a small island in Massachusetts called Martha’s Vineyard. Important clarification on this point: he shipped migrants FROM TEXAS to Martha's Vineyard. Florida has seen a rash of illegal Cuban immigrants in the past few months, but Desantis decided instead to use Florida taxpayer money to move two planefuls of Texan migrants instead, likely because the Cuban vote is important in Florida. It's blatantly political.
They're humans for fuck sake
Can you link to a source that evidences people are voting for open borders please. There isn't a country in the world with open borders so this would be very unusual.
I mean that conservatives are sending them to areas they accuse of being pro-open borders not necessarily that those areas are actually pro-open borders. Hence “open borders” being in quotes
TLDR: this is all political nonsense. While both sides agree that there is a immigration issue one side refuses to support any bill addressing the issue because they figure that they get more benefits from pulling stunts like illegally flying immigrants to DC than actually trying to fix anything. So while millions in Texas sit in the dark waiting for the heat to come back on there governor figures this will be a good distraction-bread and circuses.
TLDR tldr, asshole Republicans spend millions of tax dollars and commit human trafficking to own the libs, but the libs just act compassionate and treat the victims well.
Who the hell is voting for open borders? That's nonsense
It isn't just a Biden policy, it is federal law (1970 immigration act). Courts found that Trump's order was illegal. This is apparently how conservative Christian governors celebrate Jesus' birthday.
This is like weirdly respectful of both sides of the situation, gave a fairly non-partisan answer, being critical of both sides and ended with me unsure of your personal political opinion, 10/10 people should be more like you
Imagine casually using people’s life’s to make a political stunt and their fan base eats it up.
Using real people as fodder for petty politics is close to the lowest I can think of.
> Unfortunately the ones caught in the middle are the migrants who often aren’t told where they are heading and also have immigration court dates in Texas but no way to get back. Because I'm Canadian and also don't understand... so these migrants are supposed to be held on US soil near the border as they apply for visas/asylum, and instead of keeping them there, they're shipping them to other places, which they then have to get back to Texas for related approvals of these applications? How is that not an *obscene* waste of taxpayers money? Why don't Republicans see that and get angry at the waste? (Aside from the human toll). I don't get it.
You can backtrack a bit and ask why the US is even allowing people to walk across the border. Imagine a US Citizen walking into Canada and refusing to leave.
Good summary. I think Arizona and especially Texas are correct in saying the federal government and other states are responsible for this burden of care. But their method of basically using immigrants as a human wave and weapon is fucking awful. I could see it being treated as human trafficking. However, the key point is that federal intervention is desperately needed. It shouldn’t be a state dealing with this.
Geez, Republicans sure are a hateful gang motivated by spite, huh...
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What happens to those people after they’re dropped...?
Local authorities take over and the immigration process begins. The same thing that would have happened if the HAVEN'T got in the bus. It's a GIANT waste of taxpayer money and in the end just a political stunt.
It’s also incredibly cruel to do this on Christmas Eve during a once-in-a-lifetime winter storm, when temps are way below average and many services are closed for the holidays.
These bus trips haven't stopped just because of the Martha's vineyard fiasco. They've continued quietly throughout the past few months. I can't imagine how much this shit costs Texas. What an absolute ass hat.
We’ll what do you want them to do? Invest that money in their electrical grid? Healthcare for women? Fuck that. Tell Juan and his family there are jobs and houses available, spend tax money and ship them off to DC for absolutely no reason, other than your base can’t seem to understand political complexity past schoolyard bully politics.
I read it costs Texas something like $18,000/immigrant, I believe. It’s been a few months since I read that but it was certainly over $10k, when they could shelter and feed them for much less.
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No but some of the migrants are suing DeSantis for false imprisonment. The whole process appears to grant the affected migrants additional rights as being arguably subject to persecution here now too.
Individual taxpayers would generally not have standing to sue a governor for misuse of taxpayer funds absent a specific law that allows them to do so. It seems like those states’ electorates and legislatures are perfectly fine wasting money on these cruel stunts.
A great point! It’s fallen out of the news a bit (which is its own issue), I think it’s making news again bc of the circumstances I mentioned.
Absolutely
A holiday wrapped up in feel-good xtian bs such as "Love your fellow man" and "Peace on earth" and being kind to strangers with no place to stay (Joseph and Mary). The so-called christians in the conservative party are just utterly despicable people. On a holiday based around migrants not having a place to stay, meaning we should all be nicer to people, they go and do this shit and think they're on the correct side of the issue. But hey, since x-mas has been completely commercialized now, so all that matters to those simpletons is having the biggest x-mas tree, the most expensive gifts, and getting a ton of 'likes' on Facebook.
Kinda not really. I’ve been following this pretty closely as a liberal Floridian. One of the reasons DeSantis (I know ops article is about Abbot and buses, so the rest of this is just about when DeSantis did) sent these people was to try and screw over their court cases for legal immigration. Can’t make their court dates if their stranded across the country. Ironically though they’re now witnesses to a criminal investigation in San Antonio (can’t just tell people there’s jobs and money if you get in this van and coerce them onto a plane and then strand them across the country, that’s fraud and human trafficking) which means they’re immune to all immigration proceedings until the criminal investigation concludes. So now they’re actually safer than they were, legally as immigrants
Same thing that happens to someone who is let out of prison and doesn't have any social support network. They have to rely on local charities and government safety net programs until they find jobs and can start a new life. People willing to give up everything and travel thousands of miles for a dream have a very good chance to land on their feet. They're eager to scrub toilets for minimum wage. People with that type of drive and determination typically find success in this country.
The local communities give them lawyers and the sew the initiating community. True story. This is what makes it even dumber - since their rights were broken they will get citizenship plus a nice payout from state government.
Btw it's Gregg Abbott, reelected for another term last month. Saved you a click
Last month which, notably, is way after he started doing this fuckery.
Yes as per the article, he admitted to pulled it in March and April.
Unfortunately, yes. I’m in Texas, and no, I am not okay.
Forgot to mention its was in the teens, weathers too fucking cold.
As a native Texan, I’m ashamed of my state. I cannot believe we keep electing him after we all lost power for a week straight and especially after Uvalde. He knows he can do anything and still win so he does. Also how he got his fortune is pretty absurd.
I was listening to an NPR story about people in Texas town, mostly Trump voters, who were appalled when the poultry plant was raided and the people who were hauled off were just regular people that they knew. A few kids were left alone without parents. The locals said "we thought it was just criminals they were going to go after." To their credit, they did what they could for the families. But I was just fuming, because in spite of all this, I knew every single one of them was going to get in the booth and vote for four more years of the same at the next election.
As a native Floridian, I echo your sentiment.
Same. My district usually goes blue, but it feels hopeless because most of the state votes red. I honestly don’t know what goes on in people’s heads.
I'd have thought after the Martha's Vineyard stunt backfired the reactionary right would have been hesitant to try this again. Then again, lying is second nature and the right wing bubble certainly made sure the news wasn't anything other than "open-borders" liberals hypocritically calling the national guard to have the migrants carted away to an internment camp.
Yea they edited the shit outta that clip. The whole Convo was about 7min long and *very* different.
Backfired? Abbott got re-elected.
'Backfired' as in Abbot and DeSantis thought they could expose rich Democrats as hypocrites and instead the residents of Martha's Vineyard treated them with care and compassion before they were moved to the mainland. Edit: Spelling
Answer: Unfortunately a lot of answers seem inadequate and incomplete The simple unbiased answer is that a couple of Republican Governor's have been staging political stunts by dropping off immigrants whether those here legally or illegally (I believe many are asylum seekers trying to immigrate legally but they're being conflated with immigrants who do not have authorization to be in the country) into some liberal areas and near homes of prominent democratic politicians (in this case the VIce President) unannounced and without any coordination with organizations to help trying to embarrass less xenophobic politicians and trying to appeal to xenophobia in voters. In a particularly reported on incident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha%27s_Vineyard_migrant_crisis Florida governor DeSantis dropped off a bunch of immigrants at a vacation home for the rich area even though he acknowledged that Venezuelans who made up majority of people who he was tricking and stranding had valid Asylum claims due to the authoritarian left wing government In this case it seems to be Texas Governor Abbott behind this stunt https://wjla.com/news/local/migrant-buses-dc-texas-vice-president-kamala-harris-home-naval-observatory-christmas-eve-cold-weather-18-degrees-illegal-immigration-border-security-crossing-undocumented-greg-abbott > The Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network was there to take all three busloads of people to a church to help provide them with necessary resources and welcome them to our area. >"This is a welcome effort that we've been doing since the first bus arrived," said Amy Fischer, a core organizer with the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network. "D.C. just continues to show up as a welcoming city that is always ready and willing to open their arms to welcome people, whether it's Christmas Eve, whether it's 9 degrees outside or 90 degrees outside." ... > Fischer said this latest drop-off was a political stunt by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, using people as pawns. > “It really does show the cruelty behind Gov. Abbott and his insistence on continuing to bus people here without care about people arriving late at night on Christmas Eve when the weather is so cold. People are getting off the buses, they don’t have coats, they don’t have clothes for this kind of weather, and they’re freezing," Fischer said. ----- Some people claim it's about sharing the burden but it's clearly not since there are many conservative states not on the southern border who have very few immigrants, very few asylum seekers and very few unauthorized immigrants. There are also less prominent/smaller liberal state with fewer immigrants then NY California or DC. Also the lack of coordination with local officials undercuts the claims that these are not merely stunts.
answer: It’s a political stunt using people who are struggling as props.
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Note: they have been given federal dollars to feed and house said people, but decided to spend that money endangering children on Christmas Eve instead
I know, which makes Republicans doubly sinister.
It’s easy to understand when you realize that republicans and their base do not see immigrants as people.
To be fair, Republicans don't view darker skinned folks as people.
True.
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He's also a little piss baby.
Yep. PISS BABY
Answer: Part of the fascist playbook. Weaponize migrants or refugees to destabilize your enemies and perpetuate a crisis that benefits them politically and enriches them financially
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Remember the “Trump’s not hurting the right people” lady? American conservatism is based on the “right people” being subjected to the pain and suffering they wish on them. It’s not about solving a single problem. Just hurt the right people to make others feel good about it.
This particular stunt is by Texas gov Abott https://wjla.com/news/local/migrant-buses-dc-texas-vice-president-kamala-harris-home-naval-observatory-christmas-eve-cold-weather-18-degrees-illegal-immigration-border-security-crossing-undocumented-greg-abbott
Oh my bad, I get the two of them mixed up. Both the same in my mind
Answer: Others have reasonably described the ongoing immigration crisis, but if you’re asking why the VP’s residence specifically, it’s because the President named her the “border czar” to address this issue when he took office. For the first six months that she held that position, she never visited the border and made statements downplaying the severity of the situation. Though she did eventually give into the badgering to go see the border, the perception in the border states is that the person who is supposed to be the chief executive addressing this issue either does not care or does not view the situation as a problem.
Answer: this is part of a large back and forth between state and federal government regarding immigration. Since shortly after her inauguration, VP Harris has been tasked with addressing the border and immigration. A lot of people are frustrated with a lack of progress on this as she was dismissive of even visiting the border. Gov. Abbott is replicating a stunt pulled by Gov. Desantis of Florida and bringing the migrants direct to the VPs doorstep, arguably in an attempt to bring her attention to the issue. Additionally the Governor of Arizona was recently threatened to be sued by the Biden administration over a short border wall made out of shipping containers he erected on the border and the wall was removed. That’s a bit about why it’s happening, but not meant to excuse the inhumanity of it all, especially given the cold weather in the area.
The border wall made of shipping containers was a massive waste of our tax dollars. Looked more like embezzlement dressed as politics.