17 SEP 2022

Hub Highlights: Florida Elected Officials and Advocates Call out GOP Political Plane and Bus Stunts For What They Are: “Disgusting,” “Distraction,” “Political Theater”

WASHINGTON, DC - Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis chartered planes at taxpayer expense to transport migrants, including many Venezuelan refugees to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts on Wednesday. Less than 55 days until election day, the polls paint a grimmer picture each passing day for Republicans. In response, Governors DeSantis (R-FL) and Abbott (R-TX) are pulling ugly and cruel stunts, like sending asylum seekers to the Vice President’s residence, to politicize immigration and distract voters from their lack of solutions on the top issues. The truth is that this strategy is to evade talking about things like DACA – which is under threat because of GOP litigation –  abortion, gun violence, climate change, and health care, will only backfire with Americans who want solutions. 

Republicans are focused on creating chaos as they did under Trump with policies like family separation, and dehumanizing migrants fleeing political violence and poverty. In many cases, DeSantis and other Republican governors are misleading people about where they are going and providing no advance notice to local governments to prepare for their arrival but elected officials and advocates see right through their misguided priorities and are calling it out for what it is, a political stunt. 

Venezuelans Organize On The Ground to Slam DeSantis for Ugly Political Tactics

  • The Florida Immigrant Coalition and American Business Immigration Coalition held a press conference on September 15th in Miami with Venezuelan leaders calling outDeSantis for traumatizing migrants who are fleeing violence and an oppressive communist regime

    • Adelys Ferro, Director for the Venezuelan American Caucus, denouncedDeSantis for treating Venezuelan immigrants like pieces "on his political game board, to get headlines and to get political points."

    • Maria Corina Vegas, Venezuelan-American and deputy state director of the bipartisan American Business Immigration Coalition: “Where would this city be if not for the blood, sweat and tears of the Venezuelan immigrants? The governor likes to pander to communities like mine, traumatized by political persecution and violence … This is a new low, even for this governor.”

  • Gubernatorial Democratic candidate Charlie Crist held a virtual press conferenceand an in-person press conference in Big Pine Key, Florida denouncing DeSantis’ political stunt as “disgusting and vile”: “They’re escaping oppression. They’re trying to seek a better life and freedom, and this is how he responds to it, like they’re cattle? I mean, it’s reprehensible … He doesn’t have to engage innocent human beings in this way, in an inhumane fashion, to try to make a political statement.”

  • The Florida Immigrant Coalition held a presser in Orlando on September 16th with faith leaders and Venezuelan leaders like William Diaz, founder of Casa de Venezuela. Diaz showed a picture he took with Marco Rubio in the past and said Rubio has now abandoned the Venezuelan community.

Florida Democrats Push Back Against DeSantis and Florida Republicans 

  • Gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist slammed DeSantis for using vulnerable migrants as political pawns and for creating “political theater” at the start of Hispanic Heritage Month.

  • Lieutenant Governor of Florida nominee, Karla Hernandez, denounced DeSantis, tweeting: “It’s cruel, and these political games must stop.”

  • Manny Diaz, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, tweeted: "There is nothing that DeSantis won’t do, and nobody that he won’t hurt, in order to score political points."

  • State Senator Annette Taddeo and candidate for CD27, tweeted: “Republicans can never again claim they stand with the victims of communism.”

  • Janelle Perez, candidate for SD38, tweeted: “This is not who we are. As the daughter of Cuban exiles who came here as children, I am disgusted.”

  • Miami-Dade Mayor Levine Cava tweeted: “In Miami we know all too well why Venezuelans come to our nation fleeing oppression and seeking freedom. Today, at the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, we should be celebrating the many contributions of immigrants who built our community–not using them to score political points.”

  • Former Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel Powell bemoaned shipping off children as “criminal.”

  • Anna Eskamani (HD43) did not mince words, saying: “It’s disgusting, un-American and shameful.”

  • Carlos Guillermo Smith (HD37) suggested that Venezuelan children “were secretly human trafficked by the DeSantis regime” in order to score cheap political points.

  • Thomas Kennedy, Florida immigrant rights leader tweeted: “Where are Carlos Gimenez, Maria Elvira Salazar, Mario Diaz Balart, and other Republican ‘leaders’ who talk about communism but do nothing to support people fleeing those countries to the U.S. for a better life? They are sycophants terrified of criticizing DeSantis. It's pathetic.”

What Voters Are Reading: Fall Out of DeSantis’ Political Stunt Make Florida's Front Pages: ‘Cruel,’ ‘Disqualifying,’ “Performance Art”

Tampa Bay Times