As we all know, a week ago Ron DeSantis flew a group of migrants from Texas and dumped them in Sacramento. But there are a couple of things I don't get about this affair.
First, California Attorney General Rob Bonta says the migrants were picked up in El Paso:
Bonta, who met with some of the migrants who arrived Friday, said they told him they were approached in El Paso by two women who spoke broken Spanish and promised them jobs. The women traveled with them by land from El Paso to Deming, New Mexico, where two men then accompanied them on the flight to Sacramento. The same men were on the flight Monday, Bonta said.
So instead of just flying them out of El Paso, they bused them a hundred miles to the tiny town of Deming and flew them out of there. Why? What's up with Deming? Does it have cooperative airport officials? Does it just happen to be where Vertol Systems, which contracted with Florida for this job, has its planes?
That's a mystery. But a bigger mystery is this:
Florida had remained silent about the two flights, which started Friday, until Tuesday when the state released a video of migrants signing documents....Almost five days after that first flight, DeSantis weighed in on the transports after he was asked about it in Arizona.
Stop me if I'm missing something, but the whole point of an obnoxious stunt like this is that everyone knows about it. If you're going to do it, you want to bray about it to all your fans so they know what a tough guy you are. Keeping silent about it makes no sense. The whole thing loses all its stunt value if you don't take credit for it.
So why Deming? And why the silence for so long? Inquiring minds want to know.
Your question number 1: No idea.
cups
Your question number 2 however seems quite obvious: To heighten the drama and get as much press coverage as possible, first about the kidnap, second about who done it, third about the details and lastly the appearance of the culprit. And it worked like a charm to make the hate wing of the GOP salivate and to divide the people even more than before.
Deming for two reasons. I think because
1. Relatively quiet airport, out in the "sticks", few witnesses.
2. Texas has rather strict laws about kidnapping people, they can no longer depend on the Texas AG to cover things up?
The "delay" was to fan the flames of hatred towards immigration "lovers", as stated by azumbrunn.
“Relatively quiet airport, out in the "sticks", few witnesses”
Yeah - a small private airport which they have complete control over, means no **video** of the event.
I really have no idea, but, speculating: maybe the most important part of “few witnesses” is no unauthorized video of the migrants lined up, getting on a plane. I think the reach of video is 100x in breadth and 1000x in emotional reaction.
Like a report of police guy shooting an unarmed suspect, vs. a *video* of the same event.
Without video, the true right wing believers will know it happened, can wallow and squeal with delight, and true-believer liberals will know it happened, and will howl in condemnation, but for the average middle voters, it might just slip under their media-consumption radar.
Alternative answer to Q#2
Ambassador de Sadesky: It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises.
That was my first thought, too.
How is transporting undocumented people not human trafficking? Since it was across state lines - and seemingly has NOTHING to do with Fla since the migrants were picked up and conned in Texas, moved to New Mexico, and subsequently flown to Sacramento - can't the Feds get involved and bring some kind of charges against these moronic Republican governors who keep pulling these stunts? Looking at Texas governor Abbott along with DeSantis. Oh and I bet the respective states' taxpayers are thrilled to be footing the bill.
Exactly.
And from the AP:
"DeSantis signed a law providing $12 million for his migrant-relocation initiative in early May..."
Even if you're MAGA in Florida and supported the (constitutionally questionable) law, seeing DeSantis spend the money on border-crossers in El Paso can't be what you wanted. It's bonkers.
wouldn't these folks have needed to present identification going through TSA?
If you fly on a private plane, no. The pilots or staff of the private plane are supposed to check your ID, but there usually isn't a TSA officer there and so it's anybody's guess whether they actually checked IDs. (I guarantee you, rich people definitely don't get harassed about their ID by their pilots when boarding their own private planes.)
Yeah I get that but would have thought a chartered plan full of brown folks would have been more scrutinized. Maybe that why they flew out of Deming.
In NEW MEXICO? Happens every day, constantly.
The legality here seems really even more problematic than with previous stunts. It's one thing for Texas to ship immigrants elsewhere -- it's not moral or ethical, and I'm not even sure it's legal, but at least you can argue that those immigrants are in Texas's custody, so they have some authority to move them. But for the state of Florida to round up people in Texas and send them to California? What authority do they even have here? What possible legal interest?
People are framing the kidnapping charges as a Newsom vs DeSantis thing, but unless I'm missing something, Florida well overstepped any conceivable authority, and there should be legal ramifications.
Florida also rounded up people in Texas to send them to Martha's Vineyard. Not really sure why that was legal either, but Milkcarton Garland doesn't seem interested in getting the DOJ involved in this.
Is the man trying to avoid indictment before nomination?
It's a new thing Republicans are trying this year.
I really think someone is going to end up in jail over this.
I have a third question: why is the governor of Florida picking people up in Texas to ship them to California? Couldn't he find some people in his own state to fly out?
apparently they already left lol
🤣😂🤣😂🤣
No, because he needs them to do the low-paying jobs in Florida..
This and several stories like it answer your question:
https://www.newsweek.com/video-abandoned-florida-construction-site-anti-immigration-law-1800804
People who arrive in Florida illegally usually do so on a plane (e.g. they arrive as "tourists" and then just never go home). They're harder to find than people who walked across the border, but Florida doesn't have any land borders with another country, and DeSantis needs his cruelty to constantly be in the news, so Florida picks up undocumented people at the closest land border (which happens to be in Texas) and flies them wherever. The people who were human trafficked by Florida up to Martha's Vineyard also originally were picked up in Texas.
(There are a few undocumented people who arrive in Florida via boats, but these are likely to be Cubans, a.k.a. "the good illegals" that vote Republican once they get here, so DeSantis also avoids kidnapping them.)
It seems to me that the way to stop this is to announce that the State of California is investigating this matter as human trafficking and that carriers will be arrested and vehicles impounded until an investigation is completed. Is there some reason this can’t be done?
Civility. That's the only reason. Dems grant their opponents the gift of always remaining polite to them. It's a real flaw in our elected Dems.
Sometimes, the point of cruelty or abuse is the cruelty or abuse.
Absolutely. The cruelty and abuse are features, not bugs, of this stunt. DeSantis is figuratively waving his manhood around so that like-minded folks can chortle about owning the libs. Did I say "manhood"? I should've just said "dick" since that's what he is.
Manhood? I thought you were talking about his man boobs.
His anti immigration base is eating this stuff up.
Yes. This is extremely popular with most people I know.
You know a lot of terrible people then. Not a surprise really.
Yes, my friends are all terrible.
You may be overthinking it a bit, Kevin. You are assuming DeSantis and his machine are competent.
This is an expensive operation - millions of dollars are being spent by Florida to kidnap migrants in Texas and fly them to liberal states.
There's something very weird going on here. Obviously payoffs to a favored company, but the rest of it is just very weird.
A good rule of thumb is that when grifty authoritarians are doing weird things in public, it is because they can't hide that aspect of whatever they're doing. Too bad we don't really make investigative journalists anymore, we could really use some here.
It's not that weird. I don't think you understand how much satisfaction people get from having migrants delivered to these "sanctuary cities". And I don't understand the argument that this is kidnapping or cruel. How is sending them to nice cities that have openly stated they welcome migrants (including illegals) cruel?