Progressive media pundits attacked Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., and even called for his arrest after learning about his role in transporting illegal immigrants out of his state.
On Wednesday night, the Republican governor revealed that he sent two planeloads of illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. This action resembled Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s process of sending busloads of illegal migrants to liberal cities such as New York City and Chicago, which had previously boasted to be "sanctuary cities" for illegal immigration.
Democrat lawmakers members of the media viciously condemned DeSantis’ actions and piled on accusations of the governor’s "cruelty."
"Deeply deeply sick and dehumanizing to fling human beings somewhere vindictively," MSNBC’s Chris Hayes tweeted.
"The hurling migrants at liberal cities and towns thing is narrowly funny in a meta way only because it’s premised on the assumption that everyone is as xenophobic and cold hearted as the governors and officials doing the hurling, and I don’t think they’ve once been proven right," Rolling Stone senior politics reporter Asawin Suebsaeng wrote.
Washington Post columnist Max Boot tweeted, "@GovRonDeSantis’s heartlessness and cynicism is hard to exaggerate. Basically using poor immigrants as pawns in the culture wars—and stepping stones to the presidency. Beneath contempt. He would be very dangerous if he ever became president."
MSNBC political analyst Julián Castro claimed, "Governors Abbott and DeSantis are lying to immigrant families to lure and traffic them out of state on the taxpayers’ dime to help themselves politically. It’s pure cruelty. It may also be illegal. The DOJ should investigate."
"Can you imagine being so cruel, so callous that you’d load immigrants into a plane just to score points with your xenophobic base? Can you imagine living in a time and place where that could score you political points? It’s all disgusting. And so illustrative of the moment," HuffPost contributor Bryan Behar wrote.
Podcast host Keith Olbermann argued, "This just ups the ante here: False promises of recompense and jobs if they got into a vehicle; photographic exploitation of them...It's human trafficking. Charge and arrest DeSantis, the videographer, all involved."
DISGRACED LINCOLN PROJECT CO-FOUNDER CLAIMS DESANTIS WOULD ‘KILL HIS POLITICAL OPPONENTS’
Disgraced Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt tweeted, "I’m going to say something. There is no hyperbole attached to it. I mean it. Every word. Anyone who thinks Ron Desantis wouldn’t kill his political opponents given the chance doesn’t understand who he is. He just proved it. The refusal to see that is stupid. Recklessly stupid."
On Thursday California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a formal request to the Department of Justice to investigate Abbott and DeSantis for moving illegal immigrations to liberal cities.
"What @GovRonDeSantis and @GregAbbott_TX are doing isn’t clever, it’s cruel. I’m formally requesting the DOJ begin an immediate investigation into these inhumane efforts to use kids as political pawns," Newsom tweeted.
In November, DeSantis threatened to send planes of illegal migrants to Delaware after he reported receiving flights of illegal immigrants from the Biden administration.
In a statement to Fox News, DeSantis communications director Taryn Fenske wrote, "States like Massachusetts, New York and California will better facilitate the care of these individuals who they have invited into our country by incentivizing illegal immigration through their designation as ‘sanctuary states’ and support for the Biden administration’s open border policies."
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DeSantis lambasted lawmakers in sanctuary cities complaining about the influx of migrants, saying, "The minute even a small fraction of what those border towns deal with every day is brought to their front door, they go berserk, and they're so upset that this is happening. And it just shows you that their virtue-signaling is a fraud."
Fox News’ Jessica Chasmar and Timothy H.J. Nerozzi contributed to this report.
