This thread again points at two different versions of reality. Republican version - Ship immigrants to Martha's Vineyard to show their talk about treating immigrants humanely is all talk. Immigrants arrive and all those college educated snobs freak out and don't want any brown people there. Man did you see how much they are all just losing it? They can't stand it when it happens in their neck of the woods. We really showed them. Now the world will see! Yeah! Holy cow they're still freaking out! Actual reality - DeSantis lies to immigrants in order to trick them into going to MV. The Republicans also try and mislead them in their paperwork and how to make the reportings to ensure they don't have a chance to be granted asylum. The immigrants arrive in MV. Nobody knew they were coming. Liberals quickly organize, many volunteers start helping out. The immigrants are fed, given shelter, helped correct the mistakes caused by the lies they were told. Liberals humanely make sure they are treated with dignity. There is no one freaking out or trying to get rid of them.. It's the same with the election where Trump supporters believe it was stolen and that Democrats cheated. Actual reality was that Trump lost fairly.
For now, I'm not one. I'm a legal non-permanent resident, on an executive transfer visa. (Which is why I have a temporary driver's license, can't get CLEAR, etc.) None of the other stuff you posted is true. Who says I have no empathy for asylum seekers? I do. But I can see the point DeSantis is making: It's easy to "have empathy" from a distance. But as soon as a mere 50 of them show up on their doorstep, they are in panic. And they make sure to ship them out again within 48 hours. I do empathize with people wanting to seek a better life for themselves and their families. But let's be real, the vast majority of those coming are doing it for economic reasons. There is a legal process for immigration and also for non-permanent residence (the latter one of which I went through), and then there is the illegal process of coming into the country. On an individual level, it is understandable that people are desperate enough to take the illegal path. And it is a super difficult moral dilemma how to deal with it. If you don't have any border controls and have totally uncontrolled illegal immigration where you basically don't know who is coming into the country, depending on the country, that can cause a lot of problems, both for the people already living in the country, and for the people coming into the country this way (actual human trafficking where people die in trucks without oxygen, uptick in crime, welfare systems becoming unsustainable, etc. etc.). Basically, as a German political journalist who spent his life traveling the world once said - if you let all of Calcutta in, you become Calcutta. If that's what your population wants, fine - but the truth is, that is not the case. If you completely shut your borders and let nobody at all in, you are actually neither addressing the needs of your own society (supply of labor for certain jobs will not be sufficient, this could be considered inhumane, etc.). But where is the line? Most people would agree that you cannot just let everyone in. And unfortunately, the illegal immigrants will have a lower average level of education and higher crime rates than the legal ones you select (which is fine to a certain degree, but if the numbers get too high, it becomes a problem). So I totally see how it is an incredibly difficult topic to address. And I sympathize with the plight of those legitimately looking for a better life for themselves and their families. But let's face it - the 50 people who got a ticket to Martha's Vineyard are not going to be worse off for it. So you guys should stop pretending like some incredible hardship has been done to them. The more inhumane and cynical position to take is actually to pretend that your country can accommodate everyone in unlimited numbers, thus inviting more illegal immigration, causing deaths and human suffering in the process. Because that is a lie.
Also, as to the asinine implied allegation of racism by @Buck Turgidson - recognizing that completely uncontrolled illegal immigration is unsustainable has absolutely nothing to do with the color of the skin of the people trying to immigrate. Implying that it plays a role in having an opinion on the issue is more indicative of bias by the person making that allegation than anything else.
You know damn well Martha's Vineyard is not a good place to ship them. It was a political stunt of trickery. Do you really think there is affordable housing there for them? Do you think telling them they were getting a surprise and jobs was a heartfelt empathetic gesture? I sure don't. Why spend all that overpriced money going to some bus company to send them somewhere that is an unrealistic place to live?
Projecting panic and fear is a GOP tactic. It fools their supporters into agreeing with their agendas.
What value would you say you are providing to this country? A couple of points of evidence that that DeSantis is using immigration as a wedge issue that allows his base to concentrate on "the others" while ignoring class inequality. 1. There are already multiple programs that aren't politically charged to "own the libs" that transfer migrants from southern border regions to places like California. What's more crazy is that the amount of people that are sent through these programs are a lot more than the amount of people these GOP southern governors are sending. The official programs actually do things like logistics planning also so when the migrants arrive, there actually is a plan of action. So people like DeSantis and Abbot are using the most inefficient manner to transfer migrants from their states to "coastal elitist states" when programs like that ALREADY EXIST and are far more efficient and cost effective AND more humane. 2. As for a more sustainable solution to migration, I think it would be more humane to fully prosecute those who violate employment practices as that will naturally lower the demand of migrants causing fewer migrants to seek the journey up here because they know they won't get emoloyment. Or you could make them all legal residents which would also lower demand because the reason why people employ them is so they can pay them below minimum wage under the table. If they are legal residents with paperwork, that can't happen anymore. They are then entitled to full wages and benefits and labor practice protection laws. But the political party most vocal about illegal immigrants seem to not want to create any legislation that could actually systemically significantly lower the demand of migrants to this country. So it seems to me their motive is to create a wedge issue and an entity to hate to distract from class inequality issues or blame the class inequality issues on them migrants rather than sincerely caring about unsecured borders. Also I'm pretty sure a lot of lobbying groups from various businesses lobby GOP politicians to not due the actual sincere route of solving illegal immigration because.... because a lot of red blooded American businesses would fail without illegal migrants. So if you truly want to solve illegal immigration you need to figure out why so many American businesses aren't viable without illegal immigrants. That is the most important question to anyone sincerely caring about this issue rather than just picking up this issue as a wedge issue.
So it turns out the migrants that Florida moved to MV actually were Texas migrants and never stepped foot in Florida - which makes it not even legal under Florida law (which required the people to originate in Florida). If the Florida governor takes people out of Texas, forges documents, and sends them to Massachusetts with false promises and against their will, how is that NOT a pretty textbook definition of human trafficking?
So says the person scared of Muslims, immigrants, brown people, teachers, scientists, and everyone else Ron DeSantis tells him to be afraid of.
https://www.dhs.gov/blue-campaign/what-human-trafficking Because pretty much everything the DHS says defines human trafficking does not apply here. Nice try, though.
I am not scared of anyone or anything. In fact, I employ every single type of person you just listed. Legally, of course. Also, in contrast to you, I do not categorize people as "brown people". I neither mollycoddle nor discriminate anyone based on their skin colour or preferences. Everyone gets treated the same.
These 50 people didn't cause a panic (to the very sad disappointment of DeSantis and some on the right but that didn't stop them from keeping saying it did). It caused a community to come to the migrants' help. They took care of them and moved them to places that can help them continue their legal process of immigration. We do have a legal process in place to handle immigration. And it's pretty broken. That doesn't mean US officials should ignore or go around the legal process or worse, interfere with it. These 50 people may not be any worse off (they may even be better off now) not because that was the intention of DeSantis. It was because a community quickly came together and provided what they needed. If the claims are true that these migrants were purposely moved to a location that is far away from where they needed to be to process their paperwork and that incorrect information was provided for their living address, they definitely would be worse off without help from the community. It's unclear if those issues have been resolved and what's the consequences of incorrect paperwork or missing immigration deadlines. Our country can accommodate a lot but no, we can't accommodate an unlimited number of immigrants. Except for a very small number of extremists, no one is advocating for a completely open or closed border. Nearly everyone thinks we need immigration reform. The reason why we don't have comprehensive immigration reform is politics, not because the people aren't for it. Immigration being an issue is politically advantageous and useful to many politicians. And it only takes a handful to stop any reform.
