Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador doesn’t think that a bill backed by Governor Ron DeSantis to deter illegal immigration in Florida has quite the welcoming flavor he would prefer from the United States. He complained that DeSantis is taking advantage of “people’s pain” to score political points.
“Why does [DeSantis] have to take advantage of people’s pain, of migrants’ pain, of people’s need for political gain,” López Obrador asked at the press conference Monday, referring to the immigration bill passed by the Florida legislature last week. The bill allocates $12 million for DeSantis’s migrant relocation program. “This is immoral. This is politicking.”
The relocation program ended up sending thousands of illegal aliens from Florida to northern cities — including the rich Democratic enclave of Martha’s Vineyard — to prove a point. Of course, it was political. But governors like DeSantis and Greg Abbott of Texas have been begging Joe Biden to secure our southern border because the illegal aliens had become a huge drain on state resources.
DeSantis press secretary Bryan Griffin shot back at López Obrador’s remarks.
“Florida’s legislation SB 1718 is designed to counteract the effects of illegal immigration on Florida, a problem willfully enabled by the Biden Administration’s refusal to secure our nation’s southern border,” Griffin said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
He then spelled out exactly what Biden and much of the media have been doing to create a “false premise” to generate “outrage” about illegal aliens.
“The media has been deliberately inaccurate about this distinction between legal and illegal immigration to create this very sort of outrage based on a false premise,” Griffin continued. “Surely, Mexican president Obrador also has his own measures in place to prevent illegal immigration from impacting Mexico. Every country in the world defends its borders with a sovereign right to do so. The U.S. should as well. Governor DeSantis will act within his authority when this Administration fails or refuses to do so.”
Florida has selected multiple companies to execute the next phase of DeSantis’ migrant relocation program, according to a source familiar with the process, setting in motion plans to transport migrants to other cities just as he did last year.
The new contracts come as the Biden administration grapples with an influx of migrants at the US-Mexico border in anticipation of a Covid-era border restriction, known as Title 42, expiring this week. And it sets up DeSantis to once again thrust himself into the country’s fierce immigration debate just as he is expected to launch a 2024 presidential campaign.
In a statement to CNN, Florida Division of Emergency Management spokeswoman Alecia Collins confirmed the state had “selected multiple vendors based on their capabilities to carry out the program.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has declared a state of emergency as the state is in chaos following the decision by New York Mayor Eric Adams to bus several hundred illegal aliens to vacant hotels in Rockland and Orange counties, as local leaders vow defiance.
Hochul said the order will allow the state to bring as many as 500 additional National Guard members to help the city, which has seen more than 57,000 migrants come to the five boroughs since last spring. It will also allow the state to procure equipment and housing for the newcomers.
The city and the state are preparing for another wave of migrants when the federal Title 42 immigration policy lifts.
“It is a crisis situation, especially with the suspension of Title 42 on Thursday,” Hochul told reporters Tuesday on Long Island. “It’s no surprise that there will literally be thousands of more individuals coming across the border and ultimately finding their way to the state of New York.”
Blue states are going to have to stop criticizing and scoring their own political points at the expense of red states, which are in the midst of a crisis that Democrats continue to encourage with sanctuary city policies. It’s now up to Hochul, Adams, and other blue-state politicians to put pressure on their party leader in the White House to secure the border.
There is simply no alternative.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member