Never mind UPDATE below
Wouldn't you just know?
The head of the Border Patrol in Miami informed local officials that they'll be dropping off 500 border crossers here in two weeks. Another 500 will go to Broward County, just south of us. And each county will get 500 more every month in perpetuity.
Take that for voting for Hillary.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, a huge Trump booster, is working the phones to find out what the hell is going on. He wasn't given a heads-up. The Border Patrol doesn't know much. Like: How will the wannabe immigrants get from wherever they are processed to wherever they are going when they get here. Officials are calling around. They may get answers if they can find the proper password. "All honor to the Donfather" is my guess.
The implication is that the feds will bring them in and drop them off, and we can figure out what to do with them.
A lot of really stupid things will be said in the next few weeks. But Florida has handled this sort of thing before. Operation Pedro Pan brought in and resettled 14,000 unaccompanied minors from Cuba in a Scarlet Pimpernel-type operation in the early 1960s. Father Bryan O. Walsh of the Catholic Welfare Bureau was the Pimpernel, and many Miami-Dade County Republicans got here that way. In those days there was a Democrat in the White House, and resettlement was part of the plan.
This time, there is talk of a "plan." But nobody who knows will say what it is. Of course, this new operation leaves out the the county that might vote for Trump and rewards two Democratic counties that never will, but I can't think that that has anything to do with how we were chosen.
The mayor of Fort Lauderdale beat me to suggesting we house them in Trump properties. The social season here is over, and Mar-a-Lago's staff has returned to Eastern Europe, whence Trump imports them each year. Nothing's going on over there until after Labor Day.
That's as close to a plan as anything the Trump administration has vouchsafed us.
UPDATE: Yesterday the Customs and Border Patrol told officials no immigrants will be coming "at this time." That's all. No "at a later time," no "at no time," no "just before the 2020 election.' Nor have any of the outraged Democrats and EQUALLY outraged Trumpoleons of Florida been able to find out who made the decision to send them, who made the decision not to send them, or what the Border Patrol expected us to do with them. Sort of a case of the right hand not knowing what the extreme right hand was doing.
I vote for the Mar-a-Lago plan. What a welcome?
ReplyDeleteRemind me how border crossers get to Florida in the first place. What border are they crossing? And how? surf boards? canoes?
Didn't Trump threaten, a month or two ago, to dump detained immigrants in sanctuary cities? I wonder if this is a variation on that theme?
ReplyDeleteMargaret, the Border Patrol will bring them here on airplanes. Or buses, Or treks (Remember the Cherokee Trail of Tears? Great tradition, he has been told.) Who knows? Gov. DeSantis is trying to find someone who can tell him which. So are local officials. Cubans and Haitians get here in small boats and rafts. Until recently, we kept the Cubans and sent the Haitians home. Now we send them both home. God bless America!
ReplyDeleteJim, Trump did threaten to send immigrants to sanctuary cities. But Fort Lauderdale in Broward County is NOT a sanctuary city by vote of its city council, and the Palm Beach County sheriff complies with all legal requests from ICE. The Florida Legislature decreed this year that Florida may not, ever, have sanctuary cities, counties, businesses, non-government organizations or anything else, thank Donald!
Just like "someone" thought war with Iran would be a good idea, but then "someone" thought, not now! Must be the deep state.
ReplyDeleteTrump says NO!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2019/05/18/trump-tells-fla-governor-that-immigrants-from-the-border-are-not-coming-to-state-1021994
Is this a bad cop, good cop government? And look who is posing as the good cop?!
Apparently he's not sending them to Florida but to California instead. He hates California almost as much as he hates Puerto Rico.
ReplyDeleteSort of related, we were at a family get together out at the old home this weekend. We five siblings were seated at a picnic table under the trees discussing Trump in rather loud voices. It was a boy girl split, with 3 sisters who can't stand him, and 2 brothers who think he is okay. Our spouses and kids were ignoring us, doing their own thing. Finally our youngest sister sister said to the Trumpiest brother, "You like him because you think he pisses off the right people." And he said, " Bingo! Exactly right! "
ReplyDeleteAnd after that we moved on from politics.