When Immigration Hypocrisy Landed on Martha’s Vineyard
One side of the debate won’t take some obvious steps to help immigrants, while the other is interested only in scoring political points.
Vineyard hospitality goes only so far.
Photographer: Jonathan Wiggs/Boston Globe
When Florida Governor Ron DeSantis spent public money to fly about 50 Venezuelan asylum seekers from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, the ostensible point — besides trolling and publicity, of course — was to show that immigrants are a burden on red-state resources. But his stunt reveals a political and cultural corruption far deeper than the one the governor may have intended.
First, it shows that the US has a blue-state elite that can no longer articulate or justify its own privileges — for instance, living in an exclusive community such as Martha’s Vineyard. Second, it shows that the conservative establishment has no real plan for fixing a broken US immigration system.