The Trump administration is continuing to politicize the very lives of large groups of people, unveiling new plans for shipping some 1,000 asylum seekers a month to two predominately Democratic Florida counties, where federal authorities have no apparent plans whatsoever to offer any kind of support after dropping them off. There has been a spike in asylum seekers at the border in recent months, and rather than upping the level of their support for the individuals, the Trump team is literally planning to ship them to Democrats, according to south Florida officials.
According to the leaders, the plans include sending some 500 to both Palm Beach and Broward county, whose Democratic Mayor Mark Bogen shared:
‘This is a humanitarian crisis. We will do everything possible to help these people. If the President will not provide us with financial assistance to house and feed these people, he will be creating a homeless encampment.’
He added a suggestion to house the otherwise possibly homeless migrants at Trump properties, which are in the area.
It’s not as though interests are only allowed to be pro-immigrant if they have the resources to care for hundreds of them at a time and counting. In the face of what he termed “fiscal punishment,” local state Rep. Evan Jenne (D) noted that he was sure the community would undertake their efforts to assist the apparent new arrivals with “no help from the federal government.” Local state Sen. Gary Farmer (D) added:
‘The blatant politics, sending them to the two most Democratic Counties in the state of Florida, is ridiculous. You can’t make this stuff up.’
Although the Trump administration themselves punted requests for comment, the move seemed to be set — Sen. Marco Rubio (R) tweeted that he’d been informed by the Palm Beach County Sheriff that the operation would begin next week, not even giving the community much of an opportunity to prepare.
The revelation comes some time after the president first rolled out the idea of sending asylum seekers to so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, where local authorities refuse to muddy their local law enforcement efforts with federal immigration enforcement. Neither Broward nor Palm Beach county actually are a sanctuary area, and just recently, the Florida legislature even passed a ban on sanctuary jurisdictions that Trump ally and Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has made his support abundantly clear for.
The Trump team doesn’t seem to care. As Farmer put it:
‘That is so typically Trump. When the facts don’t fit the narrative, you slightly adjust the narrative.’
So far, nearby Miami-Dade county seems to be left out of the Trump administration’s plans. The president has enjoyed a base of support there thanks to the Cuban-American population, which has long tended Republican and boasts state GOP figures like Rubio. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez has himself previously expressly supported the president’s immigration plans, ending county “sanctuary” policies under his watch early on in Trump’s tenure.
The president has been continuing to advocate for a wall as another “solution” to the southern border influx of people fleeing violence. He wants to try and just push the situation somewhere else.
Featured Image via screenshot
