GOP governors in Texas and Florida are trying to send a message about the nation’s failed immigration system under the Biden administration by sending migrants to Democrat enclaves like New York, Washington and Martha’s Vineyard, a Republican senator said Sunday.
“They’re doing their best to try to send a message to the rest of the nation about the plight of those individuals that are coming from south of the border,” Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“You’re talking about 3.4 million people just since the start of this Biden administration that have crossed the border, and they’re coming into southern states,” Rounds continued. “What is a governor supposed to do? They’re trying to send a message to the rest of the country that this is not acceptable, and that their states can’t handle that type of an inflow.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis caused a stir among Democrats last week when he flew 50 migrants who had arrived in the US from South America to the posh liberal enclave of Martha’s Vineyard.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, meanwhile, has been shipping busloads of migrants to New York, Chicago and even outside Vice President Kamala Harris’ official residence at the Naval Observatory in the nation’s capital.
Rounds said the governors of the border states, including Arizona’s Doug Ducey, are being overwhelmed by the influx of immigrants crossing into the US.
“I would suspect that the individuals in the Southern states that are trying to find a way to get the attention of the administration would love to have other alternatives to them,” he said.
“It’s been 606 days since Joe Biden took office, and this problem has done nothing except continue to develop. This is a national problem. And yet these governors along the southern borders are the ones that are faced with trying to address it,” Rounds said.
Democrats have called the shipping of migrants to cities away from the border a political stunt, with some, like New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, accusing Republicans of committing “crimes against humanity on refugees.”
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said he met some of the migrants when they stepped off the buses in Chicago.
”It is pathetic that these governors are taking advantage of these helpless people, making promises to them to get on the bus and life is just going to be fine, and off they go to places far removed from where they’re supposed to be appearing under the requirements of our law in a matter of weeks and months,” Durbin said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
“Why is it when the Republicans want to enforce their immigration theories, it’s always the kids that end up being the victims,” he said, referring to the criticisms that the Trump administration was separating children from their parents as part of its “zero tolerance” immigration policies.
“We saw it with kids in cages. We saw it with the forcible removal of children from their parents, some who’ve never been reunited with their families. And now, once again, it’s the kids and families that are put on these buses and transported for political purposes across the United States,” he said.
Rounds said that the lax border policies are allowing more than immigrants to enter the US.
“It’s also everything else that is coming across the border at the same time. We’re 1,200 miles away from the border here in South Dakota, and yet the drug trafficking still affects our state as well,” he said. “Our Native American population reservations have got huge inflows of drug trafficking coming into our state.”
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