Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott thought they were pretty, pretty clever last month with their kooky “Let’s send all of the immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard and Kamala Harris’ house!” stunts.
They were so in love with their own genius that despite all apparent evidence and reality, they even insisted that the prank resulted in totally owning all those elitist NIMBYs who were obviously only pretending to care about asylum seekers. Surely if they had really cared, they would have just let them stay on the Vineyard where there are not that many resources instead of sending them to Boston and other nearby areas where there are loads of immigration lawyers and other kinds of assistance to help them get settled. Or Kamala would have let them live in her house!
But now it’s really not working out the way they planned, because the migrants who were tricked into going to Martha’s Vineyard will now be able to have their citizenship expedited in a way they would not have been otherwise. Why? Because now they’re crime victims and they get U-Visas.
Texas’ Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar, who opened a criminal investigation into the matter last month, signed off on all the necessary paperwork, which was then collected by Rachel Self, one of the Boston immigration attorneys assisting the immigrants.
“Based upon the claims of migrants being transported from Bexar County under false pretenses, we are investigating this case as possible Unlawful Restraint,” Salazar told WGBH News in Boston “We have submitted documentation through the federal system to ensure the migrants’ availability as witnesses during the investigation.”
“These certifications will ensure that the migrants can continue to help our law enforcement officials, and that they will be able to process and heal from the incredibly traumatic experiences they have suffered as a result of the cruel, heartless acts committed against them,” said Self in a statement.
Usually, getting a U-Visa takes over a year, so it’s actually pretty impressive that Self was able to get the process expedited so quickly.
According to immigrants who have spoken to the media, they were staying at the Migrant Resource Center in San Antonio, Texas, when they were approached by a woman named Perla Huerta who promised them that if they came with her they would be sent to different cities and provided with jobs and shelter and other resources. Instead, they were sent to Martha’s Vineyard, an island without much of any of that, so that Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott could have a good laugh.
The Sheriff’s office has not yet revealed who they are investigating in this crime, but it’s a pretty good bet that this Perla character is one of them. She has yet to be found, but police have pictures of her from her Facebook page and the League Of Latin American Citizens is currently offering $10,000 to anyone who can provide information that leads to her arrest.
They may not have the authority to arrest the governor of another state, but the federal government does. The Treasury Department announced this week that it is looking into whether DeSantis misused COVID relief money to fund the two charter planes in which he sent the 50 immigrants to the Massachusetts island.
While DeSantis is likely already being tortured by the knowledge that the cost of his very hilarious joke involving sending traumatized refugees to a tiny island just to own the libs is that those people are now even closer to getting to stay in the US forever than they were before his bullshit … it wouldn’t be so bad to see him get it in other ways as well.
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