Charlemagne tha God declares migrant moves by DeSantis, Abbott ‘genius’

OPINION:

Republican governors Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas set off a political firestorm last week when they packed off a throng of illegal aliens to the vice president’s official residence in Washington, D.C., and Martha‘s Vineyard.

Mr. DeSantis sent 50 illegals to the tony island off the coast of Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Mr. Abbott sent a couple of buses to D.C., dropping them off right in the front yard of Vice President Kamala Harris’ mansion.

The moves came just days after Ms. Harris declared on “Meet the Press” that the southern border was “secure,” but the illegals gave the lie to that right away.

“It is open, not closed. The border is open,” one man told Fox News. “Everybody believes that the border is open. It is open because we enter. We come in free, no problem. We came illegally, not legally.”

But the scene on Martha‘s Vineyard was even better. Some residents on the island display yard signs that say, “We stand with immigrants … all are welcome here,” but all of that changed once the foreigners arrived.

Within hours of their arrival, the island’s authorities declared a “humanitarian crisis” — over 50 people — and called in the National Guard. Before the end of the day, Lisa Belcastro, the coordinator for Martha’s Vineyard homeless shelter Harbor Homes, said the foreigners simply had to go.

“The difficult challenges are, we have, at some point in time they have to move from here to somewhere else,” she said. “We cannot, we don’t have the services to take care of 50 immigrants, and we certainly don’t have housing. We’re in a housing crisis as we are on this island. And we don’t, we can’t house everyone here that lives here and work here. We don’t have housing for 50 more people.”

Well, for the record, former President Barack Obama has a $14 million mansion on the island with 10 bedrooms. He could have put them all up singlehandedly. But he never made a peep during the whole thing.

And whoosh, the foreigners were rushed off the island and taken to a military base on the mainland.

While the White House called the governors’ move a “political stunt,” Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) called out the liberal outrage as hypocritical because of the “ghost flights” of thousands of migrants, often underage, sent around the country by the Biden administration.

“Those are Biden administration, taxpayer-funded contracts with a number of NGOs [non-governmental organizations] that are flying these people in the dead of night to all of these same locations, then it’s fine,” Waltz told Fox News. “But if you have Governor DeSantis or Governor Abbott or [Arizona] Governor Ducey doing it in the middle of the day when everyone can see it, then suddenly we’re up in arms and having a collective political meltdown.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) also weighed in on defense of the Florida governor.

“National Guard sent to interdict 50 illegal immigrants who disturbed liberals’ golf games & Chardonnay at Martha’s Vineyard,” he wrote on Twitter. “Biden does NOTHING to address 4.2 MILLION illegal immigrants who have flooded small towns in Texas. Biden doesn’t care.”

While the mainstream media was butthurt over the whole thing, one prominent liberal with a microphone jumped into the fray to offer praise for Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Abbott.

“For months, Republican governors have sent busloads of illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities like New York, D.C. and Chicago with the message of, ‘If you liked him so much, they’re yours,’ OK?” Charlamagne tha God said on a Comedy Central show.

“Well, just in time for Hispanic Heritage Month Florida Governor Ron DeSantis upped the game by sending to planes full of immigrants to the East Coast elites’ favorite vacation Island, Martha‘s Vineyard, Massachusetts,” he said.

“I personally think it’s genius. But I wish that governments like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott would give Democratic governors and mayors more of a heads up because then that would expose the hypocrisy of the Democrats, which is they don’t want immigrants here, either!”

And another entertainer, comedian Dave Smith, wrapped up the whole thing with some succinct observations.

“The Martha’s Vineyard thing might be the best and clearest example of what so many of us have been talking about for years,” he wrote on Twitter. “The progressive elites advocate for policies that they never have to suffer the consequences of. And the one time they do, it ends quickly.”

“They are against building a wall but they live in gated communities. They are for gun control but they have armed security. They destroy public education but send their kids to elite private schools. They support mask mandates but only their servants wear them at their parties,” Mr. Smith wrote.

• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @josephcurl