DeSantis migrant stunt could undercut Hispanic voter support in November – live – Henry Club

Ron DeSantis’s political stunt of flying migrants to Martha’s Vineyard could backfire and undercut his support among Hispanic voters in November.

Democratic State Senator Annette Taddeo told Politico“from a Miami perspective, it’s a huge mistake”.

“All these Republicans … historically talk about socialism and communism and that we are standing up to these horrible dictators. The migrants are fleeing exactly what Republicans say they are fighting against,” she added.

The Florida GOP has attempted to win over Venezuelan Americans in recent years. A lot of them left Venezuela in the last ten years following the political and economic chaos that erupted under the leadership of Nicolás Maduro and Hugo Chávez before him.

While Venezuelan Americans make up a small part of Florida, estimated at around 200,000 people, the community is growing.

“I have friends and neighbours who fled Venezuela’s brutal dictator, and to cruelly treat anyone in that spot like a political pawn or fundraising gimmick, is simply repulsive,” Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz said, according to the outlet.

Ron DeSantis is running for re-election this year against Democrat Charlie Crist, a former Republican governor of the state.

Mr Crist told The Orlando Sentinel that his opponent is taking these actions to “rile up his base and use people as punching bags while he tries to run for president and distracts from the issue of this election – being pro-choice”.

University of Florida political science chair Daniel Smith told the paper that the depths to which “one can fall in terms of virtue signalling to the MAGA” base are “unplumbed”.

“We don’t really have a precedent for this type of action in political science,” he said.

“He’s not thinking of 2022. He’s more focused on the primary season for 2024,” Mr Smith said. “This is not about migrants in Florida, clearly.”

“I think he’s overplaying his hand,” he added. “Will he be hoisted on his own petard?”

“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 through their designation as ‘sanctuary states,’” DeSantis spokesperson Taryn Fenske said in a statement to the paper.

Ted Cruz has suggested that the Obamas host migrants at their Martha’s Vineyard mansion.

“I commend Greg Abbott for sending the immigrants to these Blue cities, I commend Ron DeSantis for doing so and they need to do more,” said Mr Cruz on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show.

“Tomorrow Martha’s Vineyard needs a hundred, the next day they need 200, the next day a thousand.

“DC says it’s a crisis to get 6,000, they need 10,000, they need 100,000 they need 500,000. Because, Joe Biden has allowed 4.2m people to come in illegally and I know these rich billionaires say ‘Well gosh, you people, just let them eat cake.’

“Well, how about the Obamas host these 50 people in their $12m compound.”

Ted Cruz has claimed that Joe Biden is “the biggest human trafficker on the face of the planet”.

Speaking to Sean Hannity of Fox News, the Texas Senator was forced to admit that the transportation of undocumented migrants from Florida to Martha’s Vineyard by Ron DeSantis was likely illegal.

Mr Hannity asked him if the law was clear on human trafficking, to which Mr Cruz uncomfortably admitted, “it is clear”.

He then quickly turned his attention back to the White House.

“Right now the biggest human trafficker on the face of the planet is Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.”

The group of migrants sent by Mr DeSantis to the Massachusetts island has now been transported to a large shelter operation supported by state agencies in Cape Cod.

Kamala Harris has said that the White House is looking at the “root causes” of the migration issues the administration is facing.

“We’re looking at the cause. Why do people leave home? Most people don’t want to leave home,” Ms Harris told Vice News on Friday. “I’m in charge of coordinating what we call a ‘root causes strategy’. We have now raised $3.2bn to help the folks in those countries stay by giving them opportunities for them to take care of themselves in their home country, in their own country, which is frankly what they want to be able to do.”

Kamala Harris has blamed the Trump administration for the immigration problems the White House is dealing with.

“Under the previous administration, they decimated a system that was designed to address immigration,” she told Vice News on Friday. “And so we have been spending in the last 18 months an incredible amount of time and work and resources to reconstruct that system. The first piece of legislation that we offered, back in January of last year, was for a pathway for citizenship. People are playing political games with that, and it’s going nowhere.”

More details are emerging about how nearly 50 migrants, many of them from Venezuela, ended up on a pair of surprise flights that the state of Florida sent to Martha’s Vineyard, a ritzy vacation island in Massachusetts, in a widely criticised political stunt.

Migrants say they were promised work papers, jobs and even paid to board the flight and encouraged others to join them.

A 27-year-old Venezuelan migrant named Emmanuel told San Antonio Report that a woman named Perla gave him $200 from “an anonymous benefactor” to recruit fellow asylum-seekers outside a city-run migrant centre in San Antonio, Texas, where the flights originated.

“Perla informed me that in those sanctuary states, the state has the benefits to help migrants,” Emmanuel said. “I’ve just been the mediator because I like to help people.”

“A lot of people really come without plans, they want to come and just work and they have a hand that’ll provide them shelter,” he added. “I just saw it in that way, like a sweet way, doing it for good.”

Some of the migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have spoken out.

“When we got on the plane, they told us they would give us jobs, a place to live, everything,” Everlides Dela Hoz told USA Today via a translator. “The whole group is pretty upset. But they did take us to a nice place.”

“I simply feel misled because they told a lie and it has come to nothing,” Pedro Luis Torrelaba, 36, told the paper on Friday.

“I want peace,” Carlos Muños said. “Tranquility.”