po·lit·i·cal hu·man traf·fick·ing : the vile stunt of conning and transporting human beings in order to score political points, typically in the form of relocating them to notable places with the false promise of work, housing and food. (Author’s take)
As an immigrant to this great country, nothing offends me more than to see the mistreatment, abuse and, more recently, the bamboozling of those who have arrived at our doors seeking a better life, fleeing crime and political persecution.
People who have already endured tremendous hardships at home and danger during their treacherous journey to reach our borders.
And, yet, they were subjected to unspeakable brutality by the Trump administration’s enforcement of its so-called “Zero Tolerance” immigration policy, an abominable policy that separated, in some cases forcibly, over 5,000 migrant children from their parents, leaving “no tracking process or records that would allow them to be reunited.” To this date, several hundred families remain separated, among them 168 children whose parents have yet to be located.
A pathetic excuse for this odious policy was that the separation – or the threat of separation – of children from their parents would act as a deterrent to families making the dangerous trek to our borders. Instead, it became an inhumane, un-American policy of terror that has subjected children and parents to serious and lasting trauma.
In other words, a Machiavellian perspective of the end justifying the means.
We all agree that we must better secure our borders and that our immigration system is in shambles. It has been so for decades under several administrations, Democratic and Republican.
However, a new “policy” being contrived by Republican governors of states bordering Mexico, while perhaps not as insidious and cruel, certainly trumps the “zero tolerance” policy when it comes to chicanery and outright political malfeasance.
After the governors of Texas and Arizona – in order to provoke outrage over immigration policies — started the stunt of rounding up migrants, loading them on buses and unceremoniously dumping them on the streets of New York, Chicago and Washington D.C., Florida’s DeSantis would not be “out stunted,” especially since he needs every anti-immigrant vote for 2024.
Thus, using Florida taxpayers’ dollars, DeSantis chartered two private aircraft to transport about 50 migrants — mostly Venezuelan asylum seekers fleeing Maduro’s regime — from Texas to the exclusive resort on Martha’s Vineyard. There are reports that the migrants were promised food, shelter, support and work upon their arrival.
If DeSantis was hoping that his stunt would provoke outrage at the immigrants or at our immigration policy, he was deeply mistaken.
Reuters reports that the residents of Martha’s Vineyard stepped up to help the migrants, offered housing at St. Andrews Episcopal Church and donated money, children’s toys, “while attorneys mobilized to offer free legal help.”
The Massachusetts Baker-Polito Administration announced today it would shelter and provide food, essential services, access to legal and healthcare services to the migrants at Joint Base Cape Cod.
“While Wednesday’s arrival on Martha’s Vineyard was unexpected, the extraordinary response was not,” said Public Safety and Security Secretary Terrence Reidy. “The work of so many state and local partners exemplify the best values of our Commonwealth, providing safe shelter, food and care for individuals that had been through a long harrowing journey.”
President Biden put it a little less mildly. In a voice “tinged with anger,” he said: “Instead of working with us on solutions, Republicans are playing politics with human beings, using them as props…What they’re doing is simply wrong, it’s un-American, it’s reckless.”
More simply and as overused as it may be, “This is not who we are.”
====
CODA (Added):
Please read this great essay by Philip Elliott, “If His Martha’s Vineyard Stunt Helps DeSantis Politically, What Does That Say About America?” at TIME’s The DC Brief
