Governors in Texas, Florida and Arizona are transporting migrants near the Texas-Mexico border to blue states such as Washington D.C and Massachusetts, allegedly to score political points against the Biden administration on the issue of immigration. 

Republican governors continue to criticize the presidency’s involvement in the ongoing immigration and border security debate. Texas Governor Greg Abbott is involved in the bussing 8,000 migrants to Washington D.C, 2,500 migrants to New York City and 600 to Chicago since this spring. 

“The Biden-Harris Administration continues ignoring and denying the historic crisis at our southern border, which has endangered and overwhelmed Texas communities for almost two years,” Abbot said last month. “Our supposed Border Czar, Vice President Kamala Harris, has yet to even visit the border to see firsthand the impact of the open border policies she has helped implement, even going so far as to claim the border is ‘secure.’”

In addition to Abbot, Arizona governor Doug Ducey has also been sending migrants to what many politicians label as libreal cities. Washington D.C. has received such a large number of migrants from Texas and Arizona that D.C Mayor Muerial Bowser declared a public health emergency early last month in response to said migrants. Other government officials such as New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker have taken similar measures to Mayor Bowser. 

“It will help us tailor our needs for migrants to provide reception services, respite services, meals, transportation, urgent medical needs [and] transportation to connect people to resettlement services,” Mayor Bowser said at a news conference.

Further south, 48 Venesualian migrants were taken from a San Antonio shelter and flown to Martha’s Vineyard by the Republican Governor of Florida Ron Desantis. 

“If you have folks that are inclined to think Florida’s a good place, our message to them is we are not a sanctuary state, and it’s better to be able to go to a sanctuary jurisdiction,” Desantis said at a rally on September 15.“And yes, we will help facilitate that transport for you to be able to go to greener pastures.”

An important thing to note is that these migrants did not voluntarily fly to Martha’s Vineyard. They say they were not told about their final destination but got promises of job opportunities and a chance for a better life.

“They were told in Texas that they were coming to a place that had jobs and homes and shelter waiting for them,” said Larkin Stallangs, a local business owner with Maratha’s Vineyard Community Services to the local ABC affiliate.

Once the migrants arrived at Martha’s Vineyard, the community volunteers brought them food, water and clothing as well as provided them with shelter at a local church. The Venezuelan migrants were eventually bussed to Joint Base Cape Cod where they received food, housing and other necessities after the two nights in Martha’s Vineyard.

 “Our administration has been working across state government to develop a plan to ensure these individuals will have access to the services they need going forward, and Joint Base Cape Cod is well equipped to serve these needs,” said Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker in a press release concerning the initial plan to move the migrants to Joint Base Cape Cod.

Immigration has been a hot topic for the students at Rancocas Valley. Many students believe that the U.S should be more open to immigrants and that the immigration system is unfair towards them.

“I think that should let them come in. I don’t think you really need documentation. At the end of the day we are all people,” said junior Miyah Dawson. “We deserve where we want to be and where we belong…It is very hard for people to get their green card and like a card to come to the U.S. I think that it is very unfair that you have to have a card or a piece of paper to tell you that you can go here.”

Whether or not the migrants will stop being relocated or will continue to be passed around like a game of hot-potato remains to be seen. The one thing we know for certain, though, is that these migrants are not happy being shipped to other parts of the country. 

​​“They [migrants] feel lied to, and they feel betrayed and that, yeah, this was not what they expected,” a translator for one of the migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard told the local ABC affiliate.

Several news sites are quick to point out that this is not the first time conservative states have bussed people to different locations under false pretenses. Following the Freedom Rides of 1961, in which Civil Rights activists bussed through southern states to protest Jim Crow restrictions, a group of southern segregationists retaliated by using the same vehicle — Greyhound busses — to send Southern Blacks north.

“These segregationists intentionally recruited single Black mothers who relied on welfare and people who were recently released from prison to make sure that they would place a burden on public resources up north,” host of WBUR’s Code Switch Gabrielle Emanuel told NPR’s Scott Simon last month. “And these Black individuals and families, for their part, were lured onto these buses. They were told there would be jobs and housing awaiting them and even a presidential welcome from the Kennedys. None of this was true.”

Many first generation Americans feel that these migrants deserve better as well.

“I think that the U.S should be more open to migrants because migrants because they are the ones who build up the United States of America from the ground up,” first-generation American and freshman Olayemi Olagbaju said. “The people who live on this single story that people who are born Americans, typically white people are the ones that are building America. It is totally false and inaccurate. The people who came here are ones building this country from the ground up, period.”