Friday, Jan. 13, 2023 | 2 a.m.
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As the nation turned its attention to President Joe Biden’s new and, perhaps, game-changing immigration policy, a surprise mix of rules to deter unchecked entry, plus create pathways to immigrate legally, Ron DeSantis stepped in with his own guns in Florida.
The immigrants are coming, the immigrants are coming!
But never fear, Gov. Ron DeSantis, the disciple laser-focused on outperforming his xenophobic teacher, is on the job.
He has activated the Florida National Guard and a host of other law enforcement agencies, because crushing the vulnerable, as we saw during his cruel Martha’s Vineyard stunt, is his comfort zone.
The deployment and his declaration of a state of emergency in light of “a Biden-caused” immigration crisis in Florida is mostly for show. Actions — like this one and other anti-immigrant, anti-Black voter, anti-gay moves — are satisfying for people like DeSantis, suffering from Napoleon complex.
And his overly aggressive and domineering behavior almost always is costly for state taxpayers.
Outrage at Cubans
DeSantis’ motives are transparently political and self-serving.
No. 1: The media have been covering recent record-breaking arrivals — and drowning deaths — of Cuban and Haitian migrants for months. If DeSantis had wanted to play a real part in discouraging tragedy off Florida shores, he would have acted before Biden put his policy in place.
But when he tested the political waters by sending unsuspecting Venezuelans in Texas to Martha’s Vineyard — and his lieutenant governor said on Cuban radio that DeSantis should also send off Cubans arriving here — the maelstrom of criticism in Miami among his faithful shut down that kind of talk.
In the glow of electoral victory now, his eyes are on the presidential election of 2024 — and Biden is giving every indication that he intends to run again.
“When Biden continues to ignore his legal responsibilities, we will step in to support our communities,” DeSantis lied in a press release announcing the guard’s deployment.
If he were well-intended, wouldn’t he be working with Biden?
Biden showed the governor how it’s done, what bipartisanship looks like, during the Surfside condo collapse tragedy and deadly Hurricane Ian. But DeSantis puts himself and his interests first.
No. 2: DeSantis’ job isn’t to patrol borders, but he and his minions are full-on hyping immigrant landings now, the majority Cuban, and calling them “likely to constitute a major disaster” for the entire state.
It’s an opportunistic distraction from his failures.
Most of those fleeing land in the Keys. But DeSantis deems arrivals a statewide disaster because the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Tarpon’s crew did its job a week ago and interdicted 25 migrants jammed into a boat taking on water 32 nautical miles from Cape Canaveral?
Meanwhile, the governor ignores the multitude of Florida’s quality-of-life problems. Top of the list: the property insurance and housing affordability crisis, made worse by his special session’s bailout of insurance companies at a time when people in Southwest Florida are having trouble rebuilding.
That is a whole state disaster.
A federal issue
Immigration, as everyone who doesn’t live in hermitdom knows, is a federal matter.
The Coast Guard is in charge of patrolling, interdiction and search and rescue at sea. The Border Patrol is in charge of immigrant processing. Immigration courts are in charge of deciding who merits political asylum and who doesn’t.
But, yes, local and state authorities do, as a matter of course, assist when migrants land on our shores, and civilians do, too. Even at sea, civilians contribute, as we’ve seen with cruise-ship rescues and boater assists.
DeSantis’ emergency management chief has said state “air assets” will monitor the coast and alert the Coast Guard. People also radio in coordinates of immigrant vessels. DeSantis is weaponizing a humanitarian crisis.
The search, rescue, interdicting and repatriation system has been operating for decades. It has little to do with DeSantis’ prowess to turn the desperate acts of people who choose deadly voyages over remaining in collapsing countries into fodder for his voter base.
GOP’s obstruction
No. 3: The minute the Biden administration announced concrete action that may mitigate aspects of the human crisis, DeSantis and the predictable politburo of GOP players in Florida — Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, and Miami-Dade’s congressional representatives — began to sabotage the effort.
Preoccupied with the crazy House speaker election antics in Washington, they were first caught off-guard by Biden’s bold move, timed to his visit to the border.
But DeSantis and Republicans quickly rebounded to gain ground.
They put together the usual media-savvy charade, which runs from spreading misinformation and half-truths on the ground to making pronouncements from the highest spheres of government.
This round culminated with beleaguered, humiliated — and finally chosen — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reiterating his threat to make the life of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas a living hell.
Everyone has a scapegoat for their own failures.
McCarthy has Mayorkas. DeSantis has Biden.
And Florida’s governor is betting his two National Guard helicopters and a set of wave runners against the president’s new immigration policy.
Fabiola Santiago is a columnist for the Miami Herald.
