Speaker 1: So the more. Speaker 2: We learn about Ron DeSantis, Martha's
Vineyard immigrant stunt, the more we realize it was certainly immoral, it was certainly unethical.
It was certainly a waste of Florida taxpayer money to send immigrants that were in Texas to an island
off the coast of Massachusetts. Those things we all know. We know that it was dishonest because
we have now learned that the immigrants were indeed enticed with false promises of all sorts
of goodies at the end of the rainbow, for lack of a better term. But now there's a new question,
and as often is the case with the very people who claim that they are all about law enforcement and
due process and doing everything correctly and law and order or line auto. As Donald Trump has said
before, it may not have been legal either. And there is a very, very good article in NPR about
this on NPR.org by Valerie Crowder. And I'm going to tell you some of the key points here that are
now in question about whether this was legal or could it have been illegal human trafficking. So
the first aspect to this is that Ron DeSantis described the flights on which the immigrants
were taken to Martha's Vineyard as voluntary when he was speaking at a press conference on Friday.
It appears that that was a lie. Immigration law experts say that actually what happened was the
trafficking of migrants. When you lie to people to induce them to come somewhere to the U.S. or
whatever, in order for something that is not true, you are participating in what is functionally
speaking the same type of trafficking where young girls are tricked into going wherever with the
promises of whatever it is they're promised, and then they're actually forced into prostitution. As
an example, the dynamic is exactly the same. And we've now learned that these immigrants were told,
you're going to be flown to Boston. They weren't. They were flown to Martha's Vineyard.
You'll get expedited work papers, which was not actually what was waiting for them in Martha's
Vineyard. And instead what happened was churches and shelters and aid groups, as NPR writes,
did the best to accommodate them on an island with an extraordinarily low population and very
limited resources. Now then we heard from a Tallahassee based immigration attorney,
Elizabeth Ricci, also quoted in this NPR article who says There is a good faith argument to be made
that when you lure migrants onto planes with false promises of jobs, you are making them victims of
fraudulent human trafficking. Think of that. That is what the governor of Florida has potentially
engaged in here. They were told, oh, you might. You're going to get this. You're going to get
that. Now, here's the unbelievable part. If indeed these individuals are determined to have been the
victims of fraud and human trafficking, they could automatically qualify for visas here in the United
States. What Ron DeSantis may have illegally done could. We don't know yet actually genuinely
expedite these individuals to legal status here in the United States. He explained, quote,
An enticement like that, regardless of whether you sign a waiver, is fraud. And that's part of
the definition of human trafficking. I think that everybody on those planes has a case to legalize
as a direct result of being transported by the governor. Republicans will do illegal things,
and if they get arrested or prosecuted, they will claim they are merely political prisoners,
that they're being treated unfairly. This is what happened after the January six riots,
the January 6th rioters. And there were hundreds of them. I think the numbers up to seven or 800,
although it may even be over a thousand. They were acting criminally. And then once the law
caught up with them, the claims started to be made of, well, they're not being given the right food
in jail. They're being held unfairly in jail. Pretrial detention is unfair. These are victims
of politics. They're being punished because of their opinion about an election. This is the move.
So without a doubt, if the law starts to catch up to dissent, this and whoever else for this absurd
stunt, mark my words and you know this, I don't have to convince you of this. They will claim
they are actually the victims, the people who did this, who were just trying to prove a point. Now,
one other thing. There are right wingers who think they're being really slick by saying
something like the following. And there's versions of this floating around. You know,
all you northern liberals talk about Texas and Florida and Arizona should just accept hundreds
of thousands of migrants. And it's very easy to say from Vermont or from Massachusetts or
whatever. But as soon as 50 people get to Martha's Vineyard, they are immediately deported out.
Multiple things going on here. First of all, it's not a deportation when you're just flown from one
state to another. That's number one. Number two, the intent of these immigrants was not
to be in Martha's Vineyard. Martha's Vineyard is tiny. There is very few jobs. It's a very small
economy and it's a very seasonal economy because of tourism. And we're heading into fall and then
winter, which is low season. And Martha's Vineyard, there is not the real opportunity
for any jobs there. There's extraordinarily limited housing, etc.. So there's really not
the hypocrisy that the right wants to point out. Furthermore, they were lied to in so
getting to Martha's Vineyard and as I mentioned, it was not their intent. So this this hypocrisy
that the right is trying to expose in talking about the Martha's Vineyard thing, it's a joke.
And we shouldn't allow them to turn that around because it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever