The migrants caught in a political ploy
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 3 October 2022
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For months, Republican leaders have been escalating a campaign against President Biden’s border security policies by transporting migrants from their states to Democratic-led areas, without providing a plan for what happens when they arrive.
In a high-profile case in September, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis flew dozens of asylum seekers from Texas up to Martha’s Vineyard, a Massachusetts island. It prompted a legal backlash that alleged the plan was “fraudulent and discriminatory.”
Beyond Martha’s Vineyard, thousands of migrants have been transported in a similar manner from Arizona and Texas to Washington, D.C., and other Democratic-majority cities. And those liberal areas are now struggling to accommodate them. In today’s episode, we hear from several people about their experience, as well as from reporter Antonio Olivo about what’s behind these broader actions.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In |
| 0:24.4 | Antonio Olivo covers local government for the post. And in September he met a couple, |
| 0:30.0 | Alejandra and David Pinta at this hotel in DC. |
| 0:33.2 | So David was a soldier in the Venezuelan military in 2019 when there was a mass upheaval |
| 0:46.9 | in that country and an attempt to oust Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. And so they walked |
| 0:54.7 | from the border of Colombia through the Darian gap where they slept outside, where they |
| 1:02.4 | went hours, sometimes full days with their four-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son without |
| 1:09.8 | water and without food or drinking water from the rivers, passing corpses along the way |
| 1:17.4 | and getting sick. |
| 1:26.9 | They wound up inside the shelter in the border town of La Rea, though, and didn't really |
| 1:33.1 | have an idea of where they were going to go next. They didn't know anybody in the United |
| 1:38.3 | States, didn't really have it mapped out. And inside this church, Alejandra met somebody |
| 1:44.9 | who informed her of the buses. One of the stopping points was in Eagle Pass, which was about |
| 1:52.1 | an hour away by car. And so this person in the church helped them get to Eagle Pass. |
| 2:00.2 | And that's where they picked up the bus to Washington, DC. |
| 2:07.1 | Since this spring, nearly 10,000 migrants have arrived on buses in DC. It's all part |
| 2:12.9 | of a political tactic by Republican governors who are relocating migrants from places like |
| 2:18.1 | Texas and Arizona. The problem is, there is no plan for when they stepped off those buses. |
| 2:25.9 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Arjun saying, |
| 2:30.7 | in from our teen powers, it's Monday, October 3rd. Today, the concerted effort from Republican |
| 2:37.9 | leaders to transport migrants from conservative areas to liberal ones. |
| 2:42.9 | Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, flying roughly 50 migrants to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, |
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