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The migrants, including some Colombians, arrived in two planes that landed unexpectedly at the Martha’s Vineyard airport, forcing emergency management officials of this island in the northeastern United States to mobilize to provide them with health care, lodging, and food, reported The Vineyard Gazette.
Democratic state senator Julian Cyr indicated that one of the planes with immigrants had departed from San Antonio (Texas), reported the local newspaper of this exclusive island on the Atlantic coast where celebrities and millionaires usually spend their vacations.
Cyr referred to the threats of the authorities of some Republican states in the south of the country to send migrants and refugees to states governed by Democrats, in protest against what they consider a permissive and condescending immigration policy of President Joe Biden’s administration towards irregular immigration and refugees.
“No one should capitalize on the difficult circumstances these families are in and distort this for the purpose of being able to say, ‘I tricked you,’” Cyr said, without directly mentioning Democratic policies that have triggered an immigration crisis in the southern border.
In a video sent to Fox, Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, took credit for sending the migrants to the island, reported the Martha’s Vineyard Times.
In 2021, DeSantis promised to spend $8 million to send migrants out of his state and mentioned Martha’s Vineyard as a possible destination.
The immigrants were taken care of by Island Community Services to be relocated to a high school and St. Andrew’s Church and Parsonage, where they were given bottles of water and some food.
“We are immigrants, we came here because of the situation in our country, because of the economy, because of work, because of many things. I came here walking. We passed through ten different countries until we arrived in Texas. A refugee association put us on a plane and told us there would be work and housing here,” Eliase, a Venezuelan refugee, told the Vineyard Gazette.
Jonathan Searle, police chief of Oak Bluffs, a district on the island, assured that it was “a humanitarian problem.”
After the arrival of these two planes, the authorities expressed fears that there could be more immigrants on their way.
With information from EFE.
