The Daily - How Border Politics Landed in Martha’s Vineyard

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

Last week, nearly 50 Venezuelan migrants showed up, without warning, on the wealthy island of Martha’s Vineyard.Their arrival was the culmination of a monthslong strategy by two of the United States’ most conservative governors to lay the issue of undocumented immigration at Democrats’ doorstep.How has this strategy played out and what has it meant for the migrants caught in the middle?Guest: Miriam Jordan, a national correspondent covering immigration for The New York Times.Background reading: Scores of migrants have been shipped north by southern Republican governors. Here’s what you need to know.Martha’s Vineyard, the moneyed summer resort, has become an unlikely arena in the fight over illegal immigration.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, when nearly 50 Venezuelan migrants showed up without warning on the wealthy island of Martha's Vineyard, it was the culmination of a months-long strategy by two of the country's most conservative governors to make undocumented immigration a problem for blue states, not just red ones. My colleague Miriam Jordan on how that strategy has played out, and what it's meant for the migrants caught in the middle. It's Wednesday, September 21st.

Miriam, how did all of this begin? Well, with the number of migrants arriving at the border growing very quickly, we have a very ambitious governor, Greg Abbott. Well, thank you everybody for being with us here today. I'm joined today. Who announced in early April that he had to do something about it. Texas will be taking its own unprecedented actions this month. And he wanted to show the country and the White House that this shouldn't just be his problem. To help local officials whose communities are being overwhelmed by hordes of illegal

immigrants who are being dropped off by the Biden administration. Texas is providing charter buses to send these illegal immigrants who have been dropped off by the Biden administration to Washington, D.C. So he announced that he was going to start putting migrants on buses and shipping them to the nation's capital. Is there a place in D.C. that you all are planning to send these migrants to? Is there a designated area you guys happen to plan? The first location will be the steps of the United States Capitol. Right. And for an ambitious Republican governor who wants to make the point that immigration should not just be his problem or Texas' problem. What could be more symbolically powerful than literally delivering migrants from his state to the president's doorstep in Washington, D.C.?

But, Miriam, what's happening in April in particular that motivates Abbott to do this? At this point in time, the governor is worried that a pandemic-era policy known as Title 42, which was resulting in the expulsion swiftly of tens of thousands of migrants who showed up at the border back to Mexico. Expedited deportation, basically. Absolutely, yes, exactly, was going to be terminated by the Biden administration at the direction of the Centers for Disease Control. That was due to occur in May. And he said that this would result in millions of migrants showing up at the border, you know, as many migrants as live in some cities in Texas. Wow. And did that happen? No, we didn't have millions of migrants arrive virtually overnight because the Biden administration

did not terminate Title 42 because Texas and other Republican states sued to keep it in place. So many of the migrants who are crossing the border are still getting quickly deported, but there's still lots of people coming. And many of these people can't be swiftly deported. One group of migrants in particular falls into that category, Venezuelans, because the United States does not have diplomatic relations with Venezuela. Therefore, they cannot be sent back. And let's just take a step back and talk a little bit about how broken Venezuela is. So this is now the country that has the second largest displaced population in the world. Since about 2015, more than one out of five Venezuelans have left their home country

to try to make a living in mainly neighboring countries like Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil. But with the advent of COVID and the hard hit that the economies of these countries took, they began to seek the United States as a better alternative. Right, because the economy here is, on a relative basis, thriving. Absolutely. And so even with Title 42 still in place, we have this surge of migrants from Venezuela, and they're the fastest growing group showing up at the border. So Governor Abbott, who has a penchant for political drama, persists with his plan to bus these migrants from Texas to Washington. So Miriam, how does Abbott just logistically get these migrants on a bus to Washington? How does that work?

Well, typically, migrants who are seeking asylum, like these Venezuelans, turn themselves into the border patrol. The border patrol then takes them to a processing facility where it makes sure that they don't have a criminal record and releases them to a shelter in the area. And from the shelters, migrants usually find their way to their destination. But what was happening in this case was that officials from the state of Texas were approaching the migrants after they were released and offering them free bus rides to Washington, D.C.

them free bus rides to Washington, D.C. So Texas is basically saying, before you all scatter off to whatever place in the U.S. you think is best, let us take that problem off of your shoulders. Here's a ride to Washington, D.C. That's right. And Venezuelans tend not to have friends or family in the United States to join. So they may not even have a specific city in mind where they want to make a start or settle. That's very different from migrants from Mexico and from Guatemala, Honduras, other places in Central America who have family and relatives

waiting for them here. So Governor Abbott's strategy just happens to coincide with the emergence of Venezuelans as a major population crossing the border with no particular destination, as you said, in mind. And this invitation to go to Washington is pretty appealing, it sounds like. Absolutely. And there are plenty of jobs in the service sector, in construction, hospitality, in the service sector, in construction, hospitality, you name it, that are, you know, begging for workers. And these migrants are willing to do pretty much any job to start sending money home to their families. And I hear that again and again. Got it.

For example, one of the migrants I met who had crossed the border is named Lever Alejos. Lever, who's 29, had been solidly middle class in a northern Venezuelan town. He had been running his own machine repair shop for many years and felt steady and stable. But with his country falling apart, he suddenly could not provide for his son. His business couldn't stay afloat. And he made the decision to sell the shop and with the $750 that he made on it, embark on this journey over land to reach the southern border. Once he finally arrives at the border, he's processed by immigration authorities and released.

After he's released, he's in a shed outside his shelter with a bunch of other migrants, and they're approached about this possibility of a free ride to Washington. And the way he explained it to me was that the migrants were told that if they had no money, they would be better off getting on a bus that was free than trying to figure out how they were going to leave the border. And at this point, Lever told me that he had no money left and didn't really know how he was going to get to the interior of the country. But he was desperate to get to a city where he could find work and start sending money home.

And this bus ride was his gift. Hmm. So he takes it. He takes it gladly. So, Miriam, what happens to these Venezuelan migrants, people like Lever, once their buses arrive

in Washington. Fox will new video coming in right now from D.C. where a bus from Texas has arrived. So perhaps intentionally, the governor of Texas does not offer any advance notice to either anyone in government or any of the humanitarian organizations that are receiving the migrants. Sure enough, just after 8 a.m. local here, a bus showed up. Twenty three migrants got off the bus. Nineteen males, four females and also two young children. These buses are showing up late night, early morning.

Bus by bus, more migrants are arriving in the nation's capital. And what started as a trickle with one bus every couple of nights with about 20 people or 15. D.C. migrant aid groups say around 100 people are arriving every day. Grows and grows and grows. Those migrants who have arrived in D.C. say they were promised help. But now they're waiting inside Union Station for that help to come. Until there are five buses arriving in a single day. Wow.

And around this time. Right now, migrants are being bused from Arizona to Washington, D.C. Governor Ducey approving. Arizona's governor actually follows Abbott's lead. The governor's office insists no one is being forced to ride the bus. 368 asylum seekers have. And also start sending people on buses to D.C., and it's chaos. You have many of these migrants, like Lever, ending up in the streets.

And volunteer organizations are becoming increasingly frustrated because they feel like they don't have support from the city. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has requested the National Guard for what she calls a humanitarian crisis. And, in fact, the mayor of Washington, D.C., Muriel Bowser. I've asked for the deployment of the Guard, as long as we need the Guard to deal with the humanitarian crisis. Actually calls on the National Guard to help handle what she calls

this critical situation with a flood of border crosses showing up in the nation's capital. Well, the Pentagon has rejected a request by Washington, D.C.'s mayor. But the Pentagon rejects the mayor's request. Okay, so at this point, the city of Washington is left on its own to try to handle these buses of migrants that keep coming.

You're saying day after day, sometimes multiple times a day. If you're Governor Abbott and you wanted to make Texas' problem Washington's problem, it seems like he has in many ways succeeded. Absolutely. By early August, Abbott delivered more than 6,200 migrants from the southern border to the nation's capital. He was sending a message to his base that he was doing the best he could to control the border while Democrats in Washington were failing. Hmm. But Abbott didn't stop there. He started sending buses to New York City, too.

Huh. So now Governor Abbott is taking aim at another big Democratic city. First, it's Washington, D.C., where he's sending these migrants from the border. Now he's sending them to New York City, clearly trying to make the same point in an even bigger metropolis. Exactly. And then we have this back and forth between the Republican governor and these Democratic mayors who are really angry at what he's doing. And he fires back that, well, you love immigrants, you're sanctuary cities. And he's correct, right? Washington, D.C., New York City have designated themselves as places that will not help deport undocumented immigrants. That's what it means to be a sanctuary city. Is that correct? Exactly. That these cities will not participate in any official effort to rid themselves of immigrants who arrive, regardless of whether they enter the country with authorization or not.

Got it. Okay. So what Abbott is saying is, if you're sanctuaries, be a sanctuary. Exactly. So throughout August, this pattern continues of bus after bus arriving in Washington, D.C. and in New York. Chicago becomes the next city. And suddenly we see the governor of Florida pushing this tactic further. How so? And why so? Well, Florida, yeah, it's not a border state, but Governor DeSantis is also a very ambitious politician. He, as we know,

has his eye on the White House. Right, basically he's a Republican rival to Greg Abbott. Absolutely. And he sees the traction that Abbott is getting with this issue. So maybe it's time for him to do something bigger and better. And what might that be? Martha's Vineyard. We'll be right back.

Miriam, can you just explain what Martha's Vineyard is, what it represents, and why Governor DeSantis of Florida, in his effort to, in a way, one-up Governor Abbott of Texas, decides that this is the place where he is going to send migrants. Well, Martha's Vineyard is this idyllic seasonal vacation spot for ultra-wealthy folks in Massachusetts off the coast of Cape Cod. It's famous for being beloved by Democrats. The Kennedys spent time there. The Clintons, the Obamas have a house there. Hollywood royalties spend summers there. It's the ultimate liberal bastion. Got it. But at its core, it's just basically a beach town. It's a speck of an island. And there's not much going on there except during high season over the summer.

So given all that, how does the governor of Florida persuade migrants to go to this, as you, Miriam, called it, speck of an island, this vacation spot, where economic opportunity wouldn't seem to be all that plentiful? With a lot of pre-planning. where economic opportunity wouldn't seem to be all that plentiful. With a lot of pre-planning. From our reporting, we gathered that an envoy who identified herself as Perla was dispatched to San Antonio where a group of migrants were standing in a parking lot across from a shelter and started distributing McDonald's gift cards to them. And then she made them an offer that many of them couldn't refuse, a free flight to Massachusetts. So just to make sure I understand this, because it's a little bit complicated. the governor of Florida is dispatching someone to Texas, several states away, to essentially use immigrants there to accomplish his goal of sending migrants to Massachusetts.

Yeah, it's weird, but I guess he couldn't find migrants in his own state, so he had to go to the's Vineyard that she not only was interacting and enticing migrants at the McDonald's, but I spoke with migrants who encountered her when they were in a supermarket nearby or walking down the street looking for work. And in fact, told her, if you want to help me, I want work. Not a flight necessarily to Massachusetts.

And she presented them with this opportunity to go to Massachusetts and assure them that they would get on a path to finding jobs and laying down roots once they arrived. And as we now all know, some number of them say yes. Exactly. So eventually, Perla has gathered about 50 people who she puts on two planes to Martha's Vineyard. Got it. And do these migrants know they're going to Martha's Vineyard? The migrants we've interviewed have told us that they did not understand that they were going to

end up on a small island. Many of them told us that they understood that they were going to Massachusetts and were assured that Boston was their destination. So in a sense, they were deceived. Yes. And so what happens once these roughly 50 migrants land on the island of Martha's Vineyard? Well, just as in the case of D.C. and New York, no advance warning was given. no advance warning was given. So when they deplane,

they're basically wandering around, wondering where they are, what's happened. But I have to imagine, unlike New York or D.C., which have a lot of built-in resources that they can provide to migrants who show up, that Martha's Vineyard, this tiny island off the coast of Massachusetts, does not. Yeah, you're right. And by the way, while there's plenty of work in Martha's Vineyard during the high season, the season has just ended. So there's not work, which is precisely what these people

want on the vineyard right now. So the idea of sending migrants to D.C. and New York was a stunt, but it was a stunt with some theoretical rationale. Whereas Martha's Vineyard is a stunt without any real rationale other than kind of sticking it to, as you said, a liberal bastion for the elite. Because there is not the infrastructure or really the jobs at the end of the summer for migrants there. You know, that's right. But the community rallied around these immigrants. This parish house bustling with activity, volunteers and organizers working since yesterday to provide food, shelter and immigration services. Local churches, synagogue, mobilized volunteers who delivered food and clothing, toys. Even giving many of the migrants phones, some of them getting the chance to speak with loved ones for the first time in months after they've traversed even seven countries to get to America.

And spent time with the migrants, helping them to feel comfortable, safe, welcome. What makes America great is what we see here today, which is an island community and a state in Massachusetts that's coming together to support the people here. And migrants who I interviewed were saying that they were feeling cared for, and one of them couldn't speak any English, but to say, I love Massachusetts. Huh.

So despite these migrants being misled about exactly where they were going, many of them ended up somewhat pleasantly surprised by being in Martha's Vineyard. That's right. And what is the reaction to this stunt from the governor of Florida? Well, DeSantis basically reignited the whole firestorm that was started by Abbott. By relocating dozens of migrants, he seemed to create the same kind of stir Abbott had caused by relocating thousands. It's really shameful.

It's twisted. It is pathetic that these governors are taking advantage of these helpless people. On the left, there's a huge amount of outrage. Instead of working with us on solutions, Republicans are playing politics with human beings. You have some criticizing the governor for playing games with migrants' lives. He effectively kidnapped these people, luring them onto planes with migrants' lives. He effectively kidnapped these people, luring them onto planes with promises of jobs, and then he proceeded to send them to a tiny island

with no support services. Because here, there's not even the plausible deniability that he was trying to connect them to resources. I absolutely think the DOJ should investigate here. Some people he'd been calling for an investigation into whether this amounted to human trafficking. They're sending people across state lines under false pretenses. They are essentially trafficking these people for their own political gain. But the conservative media celebrates the fact that liberal America is having to confront this immigration problem at its doorstep.

They're outraged by the idea of illegal aliens near their island vacation homes. But for long, they'll be tweeting in solidarity with the Vineyard's white community. Hashtag, I stand with Martha's Vineyard. Tucker Carlson, the Fox News anchor, devoted an entire monologue on his show to the fact that liberals on this island had finally been forced to confront a problem that they lived far removed from. They are so insulated from the effects of Joe Biden's lunatic immigration policies that none of it matters to them. And DeSantis seems to be relishing this moment in the spotlight. We take what's happening

at the southern border very seriously, unlike some and unlike the president of the United States, who has refused to lift a finger to secure that border. He held a press conference last week where he doubled down on his decision to send people up north and in fact did not back off from the idea of doing it again. Our message to them is we are not a sanctuary state and it's better to be able to go to a sanctuary jurisdiction. And yes, we will help facilitate that transport for you to be able to go to greener pastures. you to be able to go to greener pastures. So how should we be thinking about the larger meaning of all this? Not just what happened on Martha's Vineyard, but in D.C. and in New York over the past few months. These Republican governors start off by saying, we want the

burden of undocumented immigration to be shared by many states, not just those who live on the border. And they're accomplishing that, but in arguably a pretty deceptive, many would say cruel way. Because arguably, if these governors wanted to do so, they could work with blue states, right? Governor Abbott could work with New York, could work with Washington, D.C. Governor DeSantis could work with Massachusetts to facilitate an orderly transfer of migrants to these jurisdictions. But these governors haven't done it that way. They are not doing it in good faith. They're doing it in a way that's meant deliberately, it seems, to be chaotic.

So what should we make of that? That it's not in their political interest to find a solution to the problem. It seems to be a priority to elevate the problem in the public square to benefit them in their political careers, to benefit them in their political careers, rather than to try to sit down and have a meaningful dialogue with the Democratic leadership on how to address this problem. There's no doubt that there are very large numbers of people showing up at our border. The world is in turmoil. I've never seen as many people from as many countries before at the border.

And they're not going to stop coming as long as they're desperate and in search of a better life. and in search of a better life. So it's really ultimately incumbent on Congress to fix our broken immigration system. But we've never seemed farther away from coming to a consensus on how to do that because the country is so divided, the parties are so polarized, and there seems to be no will to come to the table. Right. And these governors are not encouraging anyone to come to the table with these tactics. No, they are not. Miriam, you had told us at the beginning of our conversation about the story of Lever Alejos, the Venezuelan man who took that bus ride to Washington, D.C.

And I'm curious how he's doing. Is he still in Washington? Lever is still in Washington, and he's thriving, considering where he was at when I first met him. Lever has found a job working at concession stands, soccer games, football games. He's sending money home to his seven-year-old son. He's bought himself a new cell phone. He's making plans to buy a car, a used car, a 2012 Honda Civic, but nonetheless a car so that he doesn't have to rely on public transportation. And after that, he plans to move out of the shelter where he has been living since I met him in late July. Find a place to live, either share an apartment with some other Venezuelans or rent a room somewhere. And he actually told me that he's grateful that he got on

the Abbott bus to Washington. Huh. He's grateful to Governor Abbott. feels that that opened up a world of possibilities for him because it brought him to a city where he has found that there's a lot of opportunity for growth and he feels like he's in a good place. Miriam, there's kind of an irony to his story, right? And I don't know exactly how representative it is, but just to focus on him for a minute, he's thriving. And when I think back to what Governor Abbott wanted to accomplish by sending migrants like him from Texas to Washington, it was to diminish and try to end these border crossings. But his success,

the fact that he's doing so well now in Washington, would seem to perhaps encourage this kind of migration, right? And I don't suspect that's what Governor Abbott intended. No, I don't think that was his intention. People like Lever are telling their friends as we speak that they found work, that they're doing well, and so others will follow. that they found work, that they're doing well, and so others will follow. And in fact, as has been the case for decades,

more people will hear this story and come to the U.S. because our system is broken and it allows that to happen. The reality is this is an intractable problem, and moving people around the country on buses and in planes from state to state isn't going to solve the immigration problem. Miriam, thank you very much. Thank you for having me. After we spoke with Miriam, a sheriff in Texas announced he had opened a criminal investigation into the flight that took migrants from San Antonio to Martha's Vineyard.

I believe there's some criminal activity involved here. During a news conference, the sheriff, Javier Salazar, said it appeared that the migrants had been lured to Martha's Vineyard under false pretenses. Somebody coming and preying upon people that are here minding their own business and are here legally, not bothering a soul, but somebody saw fit to come from another state, hunt them down, prey upon them, and then take advantage of their desperate situation just for the sake of political theater, just for the sake of making some sort of a statement and putting people's lives in danger. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. A grand jury has indicted 44 people in Minnesota on charges that they defrauded federal programs designed to feed poor children during the pandemic,

stealing $240 million by billing the government for meals they didn't serve to children that did not exist. It appears to be the largest claim of fraud uncovered in any pandemic relief program. And Russia says that four Ukrainian regions occupied wholly or in part by its troops would hold referendums on joining Russia in the coming days, a move widely seen as a prelude to annexation of those territories by Russia.

Such referendums, which are seen as sham elections, are significant because they would allow Russia to declare those regions as official Russian territory, and any attacks on them to be attacks on Russian land. Marion Lozano and Rowan Nemisto and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Bilboro. See you tomorrow.