White House condemns GOP governors over ‘cruel, premeditated political stunt’ on refugees

The White House has condemned Republican governors who have sent undocumented immigrants to other states, accusing them of “playing politics with human beings”.

This week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his Texas GOP party-mate Greg Abbott sent hundreds of asylum-seekers to Martha’s Vineyard and Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence in the capital.

A group of Venezuelan and Colombian asylum-seekers was sent on two airplanes from Florida to Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts, while another group from Texas were transferred on two buses to Harris’ residence in Washington, DC.

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White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre denounced the two GOP governors' behavior as a “cruel, premeditated political stunt.”

She told reporters at a White House news briefing on Thursday that the two Republican governors were using the hapless asylum-seekers as “political pawns”.

Jean-Pierre condemned the two, describing their behavior towards refugees as “shameful … reckless and just plain wrong.”

“The fact that Fox News and not the Department of Homeland Security, the city or local (non-governmental organizations) were alerted about a plan to leave migrants, including children, on the side of a busy DC street makes clear that this is just a cruel, premeditated political stunt,” Jean-Pierre pointed out.

“The children ... deserve better than being left on the streets of DC or being left in Martha’s Vineyard,” she added.

Jean-Pierre accused the two officials of committing an illegal act.

She said, “What they are doing is an illegal stunt, is a political stunt. And it’s really just disrespectful to humanity. It doesn’t afford them any dignity … it is just cruel.” 

Immigration under Biden

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The issue of US immigration policy has been a serious bone of contention between Republicans and Democrats.

In the previous Republican-run administration, the left wing leaning media kept on criticizing the former president, Donald Trump, for his strict ant-immigration policy.

During his stint as president, Trump was criticized for cracking down on asylum-seekers, keeping their children in cages and trying to build a wall on the border with Mexico. 

Despite lesser media hype since Democratic US President Joe Biden took the helm, not much has changed for asylum-seekers.

However, both DeSantis and Abbott are vocal critics of Biden. In protest to his administration’s immigration policy, and to justify their actions, they claim to aim to share the influx of asylum-seekers arriving from outside the US with major Democratic-run cities.

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