President Joe Biden responded to reports that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has organised another flight to send migrants to the northeast, this time sending a plane to Delaware near the US president’s beach home.
In unscripted remarks to reporters after speaking on campaign finance, Mr Biden goaded the Republican governor over the latest political stunt.
“He should come visit, we have a beautiful shoreline,” Mr Biden told reporters on Tuesday when asked to respond to Mr DeSantis’s latest gambit.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at a separate briefing on Tuesday that the administration is coordinating with state officials and aid groups preparing for the potential arrival of a flight from San Antonio, Texas, to to coastal Delaware, roughly 20 miles from the Bidens’ beach home.
The flight, due to arrive on Tuesday afternoon, would mark the second flight within a week organised by the Florida governor, whose administration coordinated two flights of 48 mostly Venezuelan migrants seeking asylum from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard last week.
“We are coordinating closely with state officials and local service providers who are prepared to welcome these families in an orderly manner as they pursue their asylum claims,” Ms Jean-Pierre told reporters.
During a separate press conference in Florida on Tuesday, Governor DeSantis said he “cannot confirm” reports of the flight.
Delaware agencies and humanitarian aid groups have been preparing for the flight’s arrival following news of its travel path.
Last week, Governor DeSantis arranged unannounced flights for 48 mostly Venezuelan migrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard, a small island off the coast of Massachusetts, where aid groups and state agencies rushed to provide shelter, food and legal support.
Attorneys for a group of migrants have alleged that people working with Florida officials coerced migrants to board the flights with false promises of cash assistance, employment and housing, with mocked-up brochures made to look like official-looking documents advertising government assistance.
Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar, whose district includes San Antonio, also is investigating allegations that the passengers were fraudulently “lured” to board the flights.
Governor DeSantis’s $12m state-funded plan joins Republican governors in several states who have bused thousands of migrants to Democratic-leading cities to protest “sanctuary” policies and what they have characterised as a crisis at the US-Mexico border created by the Biden administration.
“The only thing I hear them getting upset about it is 50 who end up in Martha’s Vineyard,” Governor DeSantis said during an unrelated press conference on Tuesday. “Sanctuary jurisdictions should bear the brunt of the open borders.”
Migrants who arrived at the US-Mexico border were processed through law enforcement agencies, released into shelter services and awaiting court hearings for their asylum claims when they boarded planes bound for Massachusetts.
The number of Venezuelans seeking entry into the US has steadily climbed in recent years. In July, US Customs and Border Protection officials reported encounters with Venezeulan migrants reached more than 17,000 – triple the number that was reported one month earlier.
“Failing” regimes in Venezuela as well as Cuba and Nicaragua “are driving a new wave of migration across the Western Hemisphere, including the recent increase in encounters at the southwest US border,” according to a statement from US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus.
“There are fewer and fewer immigrants coming from Central America and from Mexico. It’s a totally different circumstance,” Mr Biden said on Tuesday, contrasting his administration’s immigration platform with Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda. “What’s on my watch now is Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, and the ability to send them back to those states is not rational.”
Ms Jean-Pierre told reporters on Tuesday that the administration has “put forth a solution on how to move foward [with immigration reform] but what Republicans want to do ... is [move] forward with political stunts.”
“When you think about what’s going on in Venezuela, when you think about what’s going on in Nicaragua, when you think about what’s going on in Cuba – they are fleeing political persecution only to be used as a political pawn by the Florida governor,” she said.
