When Florida Governor Ron Desantis sent Venezuelan migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, a wealthy island in Massachusetts, there was a barrage of media attention. In that sense, he was effective in getting his message into the medias and public’s attention. As many campaign managers would tell you, in politics, you need publicity to get your point across. If you don’t, then no one hears you. I think this scenario could teach the Democrats to try some publicity stunts to gain publicity instead of whispering on NPR about their agenda.
Desantis’s actions were also evil and illegal. Using human props to make a political point in bad faith is unfortunately not atypical of the Republican party. Governor Desantis said that he hoped once the migrants landed in Martha’s Vineyard, the Democrats would change their immigration policies. If more immigrants want to come to wealthy blue states, they should be welcome. Progressives should be happy to accomodate them.
One of the biggest problems rests, however, with the idea that the Republican governors want to deport all migrants with no due process. While the federal government should allocate more funds to the border states to better take care of the migrants coming in, human rights cannot be violated in the meantime by power hungry governors. The Republican governors create immigration optics like bussing migrants to D.C. and New York to appease what has become a xenophobic Republican base.
There is also a concern about corruption because Governor Desantis gave the contract for flying out the migrants to one of his campaign donors. What Desantis did is also illegal. It is very problematic if you say to someone that you are going to take them to place “A” but instead take them to place “B.” It also is illegal to fly legal immigrants out of the state under Florida law. The migrants were legal asylum seekers because the state of Florida has declared that Venezuelan migrants get blanket amnesty as they flee an alleged terrible Marxist regime. If Democrats want a strong response they must consider holding Desantis legally responsible for his actions, political stunt or not.
David Azcona ‘25 is from St. Paul, Minn.
His major is political science.
