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Migrants on Martha's Vineyard flight say they were told they were going to Boston

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May 29, 2001
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About 50 migrants arrived by plane in Martha's Vineyard, Mass., Wednesday on a flight paid for by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and that originated in San Antonio, Texas.


The migrants touched down at about 3:15 p.m. local time. Later Wednesday, a spokesperson for DeSantis sent a statement to NPR and other news outlets confirming that the migrants were transported by Florida under a state program that was funded by the legislature earlier this year. The statement reads in part: "States like Massachusetts, New York and California will better facilitate the care of these individuals who they have invited into our country by incentivizing illegal immigration."


The Florida statement refers to two planes, but local officials at Martha's Vineyard say there was only one.



However, a number of migrants told NPR their flight originated in San Antonio, and that they were being transported to Boston.


NPR confirmed that a plane originated in San Antonio, made a stop in Florida and then another stop in South Carolina before flying on to Martha's Vineyard. But apart from that layover, the migrants NPR interviewed had not spent time in Florida.


The unannounced flight drew anger from Massachusetts officials.


"We have the governor of Florida ... hatching a secret plot to send immigrant families like cattle on an airplane," said state Sen. Dylan Fernandes, who represents Martha's Vineyard. "Ship them women and children to a place they weren't told where they were going and never alerted local officials and people on the ground here that they were coming. It is an incredibly inhumane and depraved thing to do."


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NPR was able to interview three of the migrants late Wednesday. "They (the migrants) told us they had recently crossed the border in Texas and were staying at a shelter in San Antonio," NPR's Joel Rose said on today's Morning Edition.


The migrants said a woman they identified as "Perla" approached them outside the shelter and lured them into boarding the plane, saying they would be flown to Boston where they could get expedited work papers. She provided them with food. The migrants said Perla was still trying to recruit more passengers just hours before their flight.



Andres Duarte, a 30-year-old Venezuelan, said he had recently crossed the border into Texas and eventually went to a shelter in San Antonio.


"She (Perla) offered us help. Help that never arrived," Andres said. "Now we are here. We got on the plane with a vision of the future, of making it." He went on to explain why he boarded the plane with so little information in hand. "Look, when you have no money and someone offers help, well, it means a lot."


In Martha's Vineyard, the migrants are staying at a church shelter while local authorities and nonprofit organizations figure out what's going to happen next. Lisa Del Castro, who runs a homeless shelter on the island, said resources were initially scarce.


"Everything from beds to food to clothing to toothbrushes, toothpaste, blankets, sheets. I mean, we had some of it ... but we did not have the numbers that we needed."


Most of the arrivals spoke little or no English, and Spanish-speaking high school students were pressed into service as interpreters.


Edgartown Police Chief Bruce McNamee said many of the migrants were confused.


"We have talked to a number of people who've asked, 'Where am I?' And then I was trying to explain where Martha's Vineyard is."


Texas sends migrants to New York. They get a warm welcome, but life there is tough


The Wednesday flight extends a tactic by Republican politicians in primarily southern states have used to send migrants to Democrat-controlled cities in the north. Republican leaders have used this step to protest the rise in illegal immigration during President Biden's time in office, and the issue figures to be prominent in November's midterm elections.


Martha's Vineyard has a reputation as a destination for the progressive elite, and DeSantis has been regularly bringing up the island enclave at his press conferences. Republican governors in Texas and Arizona have also been transporting migrants from the border to northern cities at taxpayer expense.


Democrats and immigrant advocates say those governors are essentially using migrants as political pawns. But the governors say are simply calling attention to a very real problem.


The U.S. Border Patrol is on pace to record 2 million apprehensions in a fiscal year for the first time ever.


Del Castro, who runs the Martha's Vineyard shelter where the migrants spent the night, said the group is resilient.


"There's some really sad stories. And then some people, the only thing they were expressing is how grateful they are to be here, and to be safe, and cared for, right? And, you know, their needs are immense right now."


NPR spoke with Yesica, a migrant who gave only her first name because of her undocumented immigration status. She said she was uncertain about her future.


"Oh, goodness. I don't know what is going to happen to us," Yesica said, speaking in Spanish. "The truth is I am worried. It will be whatever God wishes, no? We're here now and there's nothing we can do."


"Not even," she added, "to take a step back."

 
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When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed voting restrictions last year, he gave exclusive access to this glorious spectacle to Fox News. It was a twofer for the national right-wing audience, flaunting his relish of voter suppression while sticking it to mainstream Fake News outlets in the process.

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Now DeSantis has produced another made-for-Fox moment: He is taking credit for delivering two planeloads of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, where locals are scrambling to meet their needs. DeSantis’s staff apparently supplied exclusive video of these heroics to Fox: It shows the migrants, some children, disembarking from planes, and then walking along a street, all in quiet, orderly fashion.

All this illustrates the methodical nature of DeSantis’s appeals to the national GOP primary electorate. And it illuminates the maneuverings behind his efforts to co-opt the MAGA movement, perhaps inevitably conflicting with MAGA overlord Donald Trump himself.






The approximately 50 migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard represent the latest example of a vile stunt in which GOP governors bus migrants to Democratic strongholds to protest President Biden’s border policies. Just as has happened elsewhere, island officials were surprised but are welcoming the new arrivals.
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What’s striking is how the DeSantis administration appears to have deliberately orchestrated this event for maximum cruelty and confusion. “There was no advance notice to island officials,” Julian Cyr, a Massachusetts state senator who represents the area, told me.
A spokesman for the office of Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker — a Republican — didn’t immediately answer when I asked if DeSantis had given his office a heads-up.

What’s more, some details of what DeSantis did remain a mystery. Cyr said migrants report being transported from San Antonio.










“Many were staying in a shelter in San Antonio,” Cyr told me, adding, “A woman approached them outside the shelter and essentially lured them into taking the plane.” He said the migrants were informed they’d be able to get work papers.
Cyr said the planes made one stop in Florida and another in South Carolina. Though all this remains unconfirmed, it dovetails with some migrants telling the Times that they started off in San Antonio. It’s unclear why a Florida governor is flying migrants from Texas to Massachusetts.
Why this spectacle would thrill the right-wing base — or why DeSantis thinks it would — is an intriguing question. Coastal Massachusetts has long been a marker of liberal elitism in the lexicon of right-wing demonology due to Democratic presidents who have vacationed there.

The story, obviously, is that rich liberal hypocrites want migrants welcomed but not in their own communities. Yet the island — a tightly knit rural community in the off season — is welcoming the migrants: They stayed the night at a church, and plans are being made for next steps.










What’s more, DeSantis has raised money on the nearby island of Nantucket, which is swankier than Martha’s Vineyard. Plenty of high-rolling GOP donors summer on the two islands.
A common right-wing refrain is that the “real” cruelty here is from Biden. He’s allowing many migrants to exercise their legal right to apply for asylum, which lures them to make the dangerous trek and means they’re released in the United States to await hearings.

This argument is ugly and dumb. It erases from the equation the reason migrants are seeking refuge here, i.e., because they’re fleeing terrible conditions at home. The GOP “solution” is to dramatically restrict the right to asylum hearings so migrants can’t come at all, as Trump had some success doing.
Once we do accept that this legal right will be honored, the situation becomes admittedly logistically very difficult. It means long backlogs and tough questions about how to handle migrants while they await hearings. But the answer isn’t to wash our hands of the problem.










Indeed, the right-wing game is to treat those resulting challenges as the creation of those who refuse to sharply restrict the asylum right. But moving toward eliminating that right isn’t a solution. It’s far more cruel than what we’re seeing now. Under Trump it produced humanitarian horrors on the other side of the border.

The argument is this: We will largely wash our hands of asylum seekers, and if you libs will not, then you alone will deal with them. This is straining some liberal strongholds, but the idea that this is a “win” is disgusting: It treats migrants as a kind of despised weapon, an infecting agent, to illustrate the point.
Which has the virtue of combining deliberate inhumanity with thrilling “own the libs” energy.
New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait argues that DeSantis is carefully marketing himself to GOP elites — both Trump-aligned and non-Trump-aligned alike — as the perfect vehicle to co-opt MAGA energy while also being a shrewd, deliberate and non-self-destructive politician.







This marketing also resonates in the world that Trump created on Fox News, where the most valuable currency of all is a willingness to employ maximal tactics, to fight, against whomever is designated the enemy at any given moment.
For people receiving the migrants, that posturing is reprehensible. “There is nothing tough about using vulnerable women and children for political gain,” Massachusetts state Rep. Dylan Fernandes told me. “DeSantis is a coward.”
To most people, this use of migrants might seem like a cruel stunt. But on Fox News — and, importantly, among GOP elites seeking their next standard bearer — it will have very powerful appeal.

 
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Who cares? They wouldn't know the difference between Boston and Poughkeepsie. Martha's Vineyard is a wonderful place I hope they had advance hotel reservations it's very hard to get a room in season.
Boston would have been more readily equipped for the quick drop off. Using humans like this is fvkced, and if you’re for it you’re a giant piece of shit that has no brains.
 
Boston would have been more readily equipped for the quick drop off. Using humans like this is fvkced, and if you’re for it you’re a giant piece of shit that has no brains.
I'm much more intelligent than you and your family tree combined. If you have designated yourself a sanctuary city you should be more than capable to care for these people or is it all a false narrative on their part?
 
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If you don't believe them to be criminals then what's your problem then?
Who cares? They wouldn't know the difference between Boston and Poughkeepsie. Martha's Vineyard is a wonderful place I hope they had advance hotel reservations it's very hard to get a room in season.
 
And why couldn't the plane land in their home country and request they get in line with the other 4 million families waiting for their turn legally?
 
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And why couldn't the plane land in their home country and request they get in line with the other 4 million families waiting for their turn legally?
Because they crossed the border seeking amnesty and need their amnesty claims need to be processed in accordance with the amnesty statutes. Similar to why we don't turn Cubans around if they make it to dry land.
 
I'm much more intelligent than you and your family tree combined. If you have designated yourself a sanctuary city you should be more than capable to care for these people or is it all a false narrative on their part?
No you’re a moron. You have no intelligence. Nothing you have ever said or thought has had any worth.
Defvcktard purposely sent them to Martha’s Vineyard without telling them to try to overwhelm them. It didn’t work. You’re either too stupid to realize desantis is an evil bitch, or you’re just as evil. Sending them to Boston like they were told would not have been any problem at all and as it was Martha’s Vineyard worked together and are helping the people as we should.

You back losers because you are a loser.
 
Pepsi btw. No need whatsoever for the second thread except attention whoring.
 
No you’re a moron. You have no intelligence. Nothing you have ever said or thought has had any worth.
Defvcktard purposely sent them to Martha’s Vineyard without telling them to try to overwhelm them. It didn’t work. You’re either too stupid to realize desantis is an evil bitch, or you’re just as evil. Sending them to Boston like they were told would not have been any problem at all and as it was Martha’s Vineyard worked together and are helping the people as we should.

You back losers because you are a loser.
They wouldn't know the difference between Boston and Poughkeepsie. Martha's Vineyard is a wonderful place I hope they had advance hotel reservations it's very hard to get a room in season.
 
Because they crossed the border seeking amnesty and need their amnesty claims need to be processed in accordance with the amnesty statutes. Similar to why we don't turn Cubans around if they make it to dry land.
Link? I can't find squat about the immigrants themselves...just the political grandstanding articles. All I know is 50 undocumented immigrants were flown from point A to point B. Nothing on where they migrated from and why they are here.
 
Link? I can't find squat about the immigrants themselves...just the political grandstanding articles. All I know is 50 undocumented immigrants were flown from point A to point B. Nothing on where they migrated from and why they are here.
The 100 or so Venezualans that were dropped in front of US Naval Observatory were reported to be Venezuelans seeking amnesty per several news reports. The 50 or so immigrants that DeSantis recruited from San Antonio were told there their amnesty and work visas would be more quickly processed at the "new location," per the NPR report.
 
They will blend in fine probably won't even notice them.

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You know, it's crap like this that makes it hard for folks like me who care about border control for NON-RACIST reasons to have an actual conversation. This isn't even close to a representation of who's actually there. I look at border control from a resources perspective, what about you?
 
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