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As he moves toward a potential bid for president, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has highlighted his efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, including flying migrants to Marthas Vineyard in Massachusetts last year.

In an April 6 speech at Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian school in Michigan, DeSantis said Florida had banned sanctuary cities and caught thousands of Haitians and Cubans who had arrived illegally by sea.

DeSantis also said Democrats and legacy mediacare about people who are in the U.S. illegally only when they show up at beautiful Marthas Vineyard.

On Sept. 14, DeSantis flew around 50 immigrants to Marthas Vineyard in what was intended as an attack on the Biden administrations immigration record. It mirrored actions at the time by other Republican governors inTexas and Arizona. The migrants flown to the island off the southeastern coast of Massachusetts, mostly Venezuelans, had previously been in Texas.

Two days after arriving on Marthas Vineyard, the migrants were taken to nearby Joint Base Cape Cod, a military base withdormitory-style housing, for longer-term shelter.

Then they got really upset about that.,DeSantis saidin his speech, regarding the migrants arrival at Marthas Vineyard. They called out the National Guard and deported them within 24 hours. So these are people, these leftist elites, they want to impose their vision on society but they dont want to have to suffer the consequences of that vision, they want you to suffer the consequences.

DeSantis was parroting viral statements similar to ones wedebunkedin September.

We asked DeSantis for his evidence to support the claim and his spokesperson, Jeremy Redfern, replied via email, Massachusetts called in the National Guard to deport the migrants from Marthas Vineyard. In his reply, Redfern cited a Sept. 16New York Postarticle about the migrants, but the article referred to a relocation program, not deportation.

DeSantis is wrong on two counts. First, the migrants were not deported, which occurs when people are removed from the United States and sent back to their country of origin or, in some cases, to a third country. Second, deportations are generally carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or other federal immigration agencies not the National Guard.

The Massachusetts National Guard provided some assistance to the migrants on Cape Cod, including lodging and dining facilities. The agency did not transport the migrants from Marthas Vineyard, a spokesperson said.

DeSantis and the Florida Republican-led Legislature are moving toward passing additional immigration restrictions by the time the session ends in early May.

In February,DeSantis called formandating the use of E-Verify to vet the eligibility of workers, invalidating undocumented immigrants out-of-state licenses and requiring hospitals to collect data on the patients immigration status.

Marthas Vineyard is home to about 17,000 yearly residents, while about 200,000 people spend the summer there. About 63% of its homes are owned by people who live there seasonally, including former President Barack Obama.

The wealthy island is in themidst of an affordable housing crisisand not equipped to handle the sudden arrival of dozens of immigrants, said Lisa Belcastro, the islands homeless shelter coordinator, in September. There is no year-round homeless shelter on the island.

On Cape Cod, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency led efforts to provide the immigrants with food, shelter and services, and coordinated with state and local agencies and nonprofit agencies. The migrants were provided access to health care, case management for housing and educational support for children and regular trips into the community for medical and other needs.

The Cape Cod shelter closed Oct. 7.

Monika Langarica, a staff attorney at the Center for Immigration Law and Policyat the UCLA School of Law, told us in September that movement between states or regions within the United States is not a deportation.

TheVineyard Gazettereported in March that of the 49 migrants, four of them ended up back on the island.

Over the winter they have quietly settled into island life, taking English classes at night and working odd jobs as they begin to navigate the labyrinthine American immigration system, a process that can take years, the Gazette wrote.

Rachel Self, an immigration lawyer representing five of the migrants, told us that she is not aware of any of the migrants being deported. She said that the migrants have applied for asylum andU visas, which are set aside for victims of certain crimes. Self said that most of the migrants have stayed in Massachusetts.

The Lawyers for Civil Rights, an organization headquartered in Boston that represents immigrants and people of color, filed a federal civil rights class action lawsuit in September against DeSantis and other Florida officials, challenging the transportation of the migrants to the island.

Ivn Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of the group, told PolitiFact that none of the clients have been deported. The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts also told PolitiFact that it is unaware of any deportations.

DeSantis said when migrants arrived on Marthas Vineyard, They called out the National Guard and deported them within 24 hours.

The migrants were relocated to a Cape Cod military base and were not removed from the United States. They remain in the U.S. today.

Deportations are carried out by federal immigration authorities, not the National Guard.

We rate this statement False.

This fact check was originallypublished by PolitiFact, which is part of the Poynter Institute. See the sources for this fact check here.

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Ron DeSantis falsely said migrants were deported from Marthas ... - Poynter

Forty-two foreign nationals and one South African are expected to appear in the Mecklenburg Magistrates Court tomorrow, Thursday April 13, on charges of illegal mining and contravention of the Immigration Act.

The suspects were apprehended during a joint intelligence operation conducted by members of the Provincial Illegal Mining Task Team, Provincial Organised Crime Unit and the RR Undercover Security Company at Ga-Phasha Village outside Mecklenburg at about 23:30.

The SAPS had received information about illegal mining activities taking place in the area and swiftly reacted.

Upon arrival, the police found the suspects busy mining chrome at Sefateng Mine without authorisation. When the suspects saw law enforcement, they ran into the nearby bush while others went into the self-made tunnels to avoid being nabbed. The scene was cordoned and 43 suspects were apprehended, said the Limpopo SAPS spokesperson, Colonel Malesela Ledwaba.

In addition, the SAPS confiscated 12 generators and 10 jackhammers valued at R170 000 and chrome estimated to be more than R1m.

The male suspects, aged between 18 and 43, are 41 undocumented Zimbabweans, an undocumented Mozambican and a South African.

The police will stop at nothing to ensure that the perpetrators of these crimes are arrested and ultimately incarcerated for justice to prevail, said the Limpopo SAPS commissioner, Lieutenant General Thembi Hadebe.The SAPS are continuing with operations to curb illegal mining across the province.

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42 illegal immigrants and a South African arrested for illegal mining in Mecklenburg - Lowvelder

Clarity counts, but obfuscation is better when trying to unload unpopular items. Seasoned home buyers can attest that any listing described as historic likely means the house is as drafty as an upper deck at Wrigley Field, mice have homesteading rights, and the wiring is a tinderbox on which local firemen have been waging bets. Similarly, car buyers know lightly driven means the clunker has more digits on the odometer than the U.S National Debt Clock.

Likewise, honesty is lacking in most thingsimmigration.

Case in point is Gary, Indiana, which in 2017 enacted a Welcoming City ordinance which sounds awfully nice on the surface given we all have a human instinct to be hospitable to new neighbors. The problem is that this measure doesnt delineate between legal immigrants and illegal aliens, it prohibits local officialsincluding policefrom requesting immigration status information, and thereby ignores the threat of criminal aliens and gangs. Most importantly, it runs afoul of Indianas anti-sanctuary laws passed in 2011. The ordinancewhich more accurately should be labeled, Garys Dinner Bell for Illegal Alienshas stubbornly survived several rounds of lawsuits, mostly due to lack of standing byplaintiffs.

Similar measures are popping up across the country. Despite squishy titles, theyre nothing other than efforts to reward and incentivize illegal immigration; never mind that doing so adversely impacts community safety, fiscal solvency, and overall quality of life for existing Americanresidents.

Other euphemisms abound. Fix a Broken System is one such gem. This is commonly used by leftists distressed that there are actually laws against illegal immigration and outraged that America is not quadrupling its annual number of legal immigrants (or whatever increase is mathematically proven to deliver the precise number of new immigrant voters that will ensure one party dominance in all perpetuity). But the fact is, illegal aliens arent supposed to be in the United States because by definition they do not have legal status. As regards to our level of legal immigration, America currently allows in more than one million people a year, more than any other industrialized country on the planet. The bottom line is that the only thing broken about our immigration system is an unwillingness to impose sensible limitations and enforce the laws. Accuracy might suggest that their version of fixing a broken system should be read as making the systemworse.

The granddaddy of linguist sleight-of-hand is undocumented workers. Given the huge sums of Soros-sourced money the special interests have, one might assume their high-paid consultants would have told them that this euphemism expired years ago. We all know it means illegal aliens, but open border advocates believe that using the adjective undocumented magically erases the illegality, while implying they are workers suggests all are gainfully employed, which theyre often not. The proper reference is illegal aliens. Illegal means prohibited by law. Yes, entry without inspection into the U.S is prohibited. And alien is a term defined in 8 U.S.C. Section 1101 and used by legal professionals across the board including the United States Supreme Court. Its okay to say illegal aliens! Youll be in goodcompany.

George Carlin once said that language is a tool for concealing the truth, so caveat emptor on all these examples and so many others. And as regards Gary, Indianas Welcoming ordinance violating state law that no one seems able to do much about, well there is something useful brewing. The Indiana Senate recently voted to add teeth into the existing state sanctuary-city ban by authorizing the attorney general to sue jurisdictions like Gary that openly violate it with so-called Welcoming ordinances. The House still has to vote on it before they adjourn April 27. Hoosiers need to tell the Indiana House and Governor Eric Holcomb to support it too, otherwise Indianas anti-sanctuary law will continue to be whittled down by one local initiative after theother.

And that, at least, is the plaintruth.

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Translating the Language of the Left in Gary, Indiana and Elsewhere - Federation for American Immigration Reform

OPINION:

Hospitals are buckling under the strain of Americas illegal immigration crisis.

Consider one hospital in the border city of Yuma, Arizona an area where the daily number of illegal crossings has skyrocketed from roughly 40 to more than 1,000 over the past two years.

Hospital administrators recently pleaded with a visiting congressional delegation for relief, explaining how their modest 406-bed facility has been forced to provide over $26 million in uncompensated care to illegal immigrants in just one year. So many pregnant illegal immigrants are flooding the hospital that doctors have had to delay planned deliveries for American mothers.

The Yuma hospital, just miles from the border, certainly has it worse than most. But hospitals nationwide are struggling to cope with the record influx of foreign nationals. At one point in December, more than 80% of U.S. hospital beds were occupied a level not seen since January 2022, the peak of the omicron wave. But this time, only about 6% of beds went to COVID-19 patients. This past winter, near-record numbers of patients including many recently arrived illegal immigrants needed care for a far wider variety of ailments.

The scale of border crossings is without precedent. From October through January, law enforcement agents recorded over 874,000 encounters with illegal immigrants at the border 30% more than the same four-month stretch the prior year, and almost double the number of encounters in the entirety of fiscal 2020, the last full fiscal year before President Biden took office.

Due to immigration both illegal and legal the nations population is growing far faster than hospital capacity. In 2021, immigration, rather than net reproduction (births outpacing deaths), accounted for a majority of U.S. population growth for the first time in history. The U.S. population is expected to increase by over 70 million in the next 40 years.

Our health care system cant keep up. As of 2017, we had only 2.9 hospital beds per 1,000 Americans down nearly 70% since 1960, even though the population has nearly doubled since then.

Given this rapid population growth, its hardly surprising that nearly 40% of emergency rooms across the country report that theyre overcrowded every day. Overcrowding leads to longer wait times to receive care. In fact, between 2017 and 2021, the percentage of patients who left before receiving any care whatsoever nearly doubled.

Not coincidentally, a majority of Americans think U.S. health care is poor or fair at best for the first time in decades.

Among the nonelderly population, illegal immigrants are more than five times as likely to be uninsured as U.S. citizens. Thanks to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, uninsured illegal immigrants can receive emergency medical services via emergency Medicaid. Emergency rooms, as overcrowded and understaffed as they already are, are the only place many illegal immigrants turn to when they need medical services.

If were going to right the proverbial ship in our hospitals, we need to curb the immigration-driven population boom. That status quo is simply unsustainable.

Mike Hanauer is an environmental activist with more than 30 years experience. He is a speaker for the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy and has served on the National Board of Zero Population Growth and co-chaired the New England Coalition for Sustainable Population.

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To keep hospitals open, we need to close our border - Washington Times

When Gov. Greg Abbott announced that his first busload of 30 or so migrants, plucked from the streets of Texas, had reached the nations capital last year, he faced a wall of criticism.

Some on the right worried that he was wasting taxpayer money on illegal immigrants. The White House derided the busing as unhelpful and ineffective, and immigration rights advocates complained that it was a dirty trick that treated the migrants as political pawns.

A year on, those on the right are celebrating Mr. Abbotts decision as a watershed moment in the immigration debate. Leaders on the left have paid the governor the most sincere form of flattery by mounting their own busing campaigns.

Among them is New York City, one of the destinations for Mr. Abbotts buses. The city has begun paying for bus tickets to get migrants out of town and make them someone elses problem.

Mr. Abbott, a Republican, said his goal of busing was to share the pain, particularly with sanctuary cities that limited their cooperation with immigration authorities and pronounced themselves welcoming to those in the U.S. illegally. His state was facing an unprecedented crush of illegal immigrants under President Bidens policies.

It turned out that the sanctuaries welcome had limits, and Mr. Abbotts busing campaign found them.

Leaders in Chicago, New York and the District of Columbia all destinations for Mr. Abbotts buses were soon using words such as crisis to describe the trickle of newcomers.

Its pretty clear it had the desired effect, which was to light a fire under the Democrats to do something about the border, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. Now, they havent done as much as Id like, but theres no question Democratic mayors complained to the White House and demanded some changes.

The first migrants arrived at Union Station in the District on April 13, a Wednesday.

The location was chosen because it was close to the Capitol, so members of Congress could get a close-up look at the situation. Congress happened to be on spring break, but members would get plenty of other chances to see migrants.

As of the latest public accounting, in mid-February, Mr. Abbotts office said more than 9,100 migrants had been bused to the District. Another 5,200 were sent to New York City, 1,500 to Chicago and 890 to Philadelphia.

The pace has slowed this year.

The governors office didnt respond to inquiries for this report, but one reason for the slowdown could be that fewer migrants are arriving in Texas.

The Biden administration announced a policy in early January to siphon some illegal border crossings into a more orderly process by appointment. Through the first two months of the year, it was working. Illegal immigrants are still showing up but in somewhat smaller numbers.

Analysts said Mr. Abbotts busing can take at least some credit for Mr. Bidens change.

Obviously, Abbott tapped into something and got a rise out of the administration, Mr. Krikorian said. Its been a rousing success, so long as you didnt think somehow the Biden administration was going to completely change its take on immigration.

Jennie Murray, president and CEO of the National Immigration Forum, said she had some compassion for Texas but warned officials not to forget about the migrants situations.

They are chiefly Venezuelans, but also Nicaraguans, Cubans, Haitians and others fleeing authoritarian governments or countries in chaos the sorts of folks who needed orderly welcomes. Instead, she said, they got disorder, with Texas sending them to other communities without any coordination for housing, job assistance or other accommodations.

Its not the mayor or the governor of that receiving place who feels the pain; its those individuals, who are already vulnerable, Ms. Murray said. If he had coordinated, that would be a different thing. This would be an important moment in the immigration debate. But to see already vulnerable folks then treated as political pawns is obviously no partys goal.

Maureen Meyer, vice president for programs at the Washington Office on Latin America, also homed in on Texas failure to cooperate with the busing destinations.

Increased coordination and additional federal support is needed for local communities receiving migrants and asylum seekers, but in the meantime, local governments, organizations and volunteers have stepped up independently to help these migrants resettle and obtain legal services to navigate their immigration cases, she said.

New York officials didnt respond to an inquiry for this report.

D.C. officials said they welcomed 66 total buses with 2,566 migrants. Most of them, nearly 88%, indicated they were heading to final destinations outside the District.

New York was the top designation, followed by New Jersey.

More than 1,300 were given temporary shelter, and 331 children were enrolled in schools. Ten babies among the new arrivals have been born.

Mayor Muriel Bowsers emergency declaration over the migrants has expired, though legislation establishing the welcoming office is in effect through August.

The White House initially mocked Mr. Abbott for wasting Texas taxpayers money by saying he was paying to transport people who wanted to leave the state anyway.

The administration eventually settled on the coordination critique and complained that moving migrants made it tougher for them to check in with the government.

Ken Oliver, senior director of Right on Immigration at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, said Mr. Abbotts campaign brought the realities of the border chaos to places that usually didnt pay attention.

D.C. leaders claimed they didnt have the resources to handle the several thousand new arrivals and pleaded with the federal government for more money.

In Chicago, residents balked at a migrant camp in their neighborhood.

In New York, Mayor Eric Adams was stashing migrants in a giant tent in a flood zone until activists shamed him into shutting it down. They said the mayor was violating the citys right-to-shelter law.

Mr. Adams acknowledged this year that New York was offering bus tickets for migrants to travel north, taking a page out of Mr. Abbotts playbook. Mr. Adams was hoping they would cross the border into Canada.

As people see migrants housed in hotels that normal Americans would never get the government to pay their way to stay at, much less transportation around the country, its helped fuel a backlash, Mr. Oliver said.

He said some conservatives had trepidation about spending taxpayer money on illegal immigrants. As they looked into the issue, however, they figured the price for a bus seat was far lower than the states costs for education, public safety and health care for each new arrival.

There were skeptics early on, but then you saw validation of it, and even imitation of it by the governor of Florida taking it to another level, Mr. Oliver said.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey also started sending migrants to the nations capital. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis flew migrants from Texas to Marthas Vineyard, a playground for the countrys liberal elite.

Mr. Krikorian said those governors helped de-Trumpify immigration by refocusing the debate squarely on Mr. Bidens struggles and away from former President Donald Trump, who had a knack for poisoning policy positions for much of the public merely because he held them.

In all of this busing thing, Trump is not the story at all, Mr. Krikorian said.

Busing was just one part of Mr. Abbotts Operation Lone Star, begun in 2021 to fill gaps left by Mr. Bidens more lenient approach to illegal immigration.

He has started building border walls on state land, deployed the Texas National Guard and state troopers to the border to deter illegal crossings, and encouraged local prosecutors to bring charges when federal officials wont.

Prosecutors can charge smugglers and illegal immigrants with trespassing.

Last year, Mr. Abbott announced strict state safety inspections for commercial traffic crossing from Mexico. The goal was to pressure Mexico to do more to stop the flood of people and drugs. After a few days and massive delays at the border crossings, Mr. Abbott declared victory and relaxed the inspections with no long-term dent in the flow of people or drugs.

Wall construction has also been a slog, with just 1.7 miles constructed in 2022. Texas is considering another 14 miles of construction across two contracts this year.

The state Legislature is looking at more steps.

One pending bill would establish a force to track down and slap unauthorized migrants with stiffer state penalties, including a $10,000 fine.

The governor has always said that theres more to be done. This isnt the last movie. Operation Lone Star continues to add new initiatives, and thats happening as we speak in the Texas Legislature, Mr. Oliver said.

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One year later: Greg Abbott's migrant buses succeeded in rewriting ... - Washington Times