The people of the island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts came together and treated refugee migrants with respect, care and compassion when they were flown out of Florida and dumped into the democratic state. The residents of Martha's Vineyard are this week's heroes.
Two weeks ago, when that vile Florida Governor Ron DeSantis decided to commit the crime of human trafficking and ship people to a Democratic state to get them out of the Republican-held state of Florida. Texas' Republican governor Greg Abbott did the same thing by shipping migrant refugees here to Washington, DC and to the Vice President's house - How VILE, how inhuman. At least the people who DO live in Democratic states have respect for people and care for them. Let that sink in. Here's the story of the heroes of the week.
‘They enriched us.’ Migrants’ 44-hour visit leaves an indelible mark on Martha’s Vineyard
After sharing hugs and teary goodbyes with roughly 50 migrants who had arrived unexpectedly by plane on this affluent vacation island, the volunteers who sheltered them at an Episcopal church carried out tables and chairs, packed food onto trucks and folded portable cots.
A familiar quiet had descended by Friday afternoon on the tree-lined downtown block on Martha’s Vineyard, where Jackie Stallings, 56, could not stop thinking about a young Venezuelan – she was 23 but looked 15 – who sat with her in the St. Andrew’s Parish House the night before.
The asylum seeker showed Stallings cell phone video taken during the journey across a remote Central American jungle, pointing out migrants who died along the way.
“It was like she was showing me cat videos but it was actually their journey and what they endured to get here,” said Stallings, a member of the Martha’s Vineyard Community Services nonprofit. “There were bodies and moms with babies trying to get through mud that was like clay.”
“The heartbreaking part is seeing these beautiful young ladies become desensitized,” said her husband, Larkin Stallings, 66, an Oak Bluffs bar owner who sits on the nonprofit’s board. “For them, they just flip and show you a picture.”
“She was like, look, this one died, part of their original party. And he died and this one died. The mud is like to up to here to them,” she said Friday in the shade of the parish house porch, pointing to her thigh. “And you see them, they literally have to lift their legs out the mud. They die because they get stuck.”
During their whirlwind 44-hour visit this week, migrants like the young Venezuelan woman left an indelible mark on their accidental hosts in this isolated enclave known as a summer playground for former US presidents, celebrities and billionaires.
They were flown from Texas on Florida’s dime
The guests, including young children, boarded buses Friday morning around the corner from St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church.
Days of uncertainty on the small island off the coast of Massachusetts and a massive effort by locals to provide for them ended with a new odyssey – a ferry ride and then another bus caravan to temporary housing at Joint Base Cape Cod.
Texas Flew Them to Florida, who Flew & Dumped Them in Massachusetts
The asylum seekers – most of them from Venezuela – had been flown from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday under arrangements made by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – part of a series of moves by Republican governors to transport migrants to liberal cities to protest what they describe as the failure of the federal government to secure the southern border.
Martha’s Vineyard had not been expecting them but a small army of activists mobilized to help people who had become pawns in the contentious debate over America’s broken immigration system.
DeSantis’ move was sharply denounced by the White House, Democratic officials and immigration lawyers who vowed legal action on grounds, they said, the migrants were lured north with promises of work, housing and help with immigration papers and ultimately misled about their final destination.
Florida’s governor denied the migrants did not know where they were going. He said they had signed a waiver and had been provided with a packet that included a map of Martha’s Vineyard. “It’s obvious that’s where they were going,” he said, adding that the move was voluntary.
Lisa Belcastro, winter shelter coordinator for the Harbor Homes nonprofit, was close to tears about an hour after the migrants left the island on Friday, with volunteers beginning to clean up the parish house and church hall where the newcomers slept. “I want them to have a good life,” she said. “I want the journey they experienced and the hardships they experienced to have been worth it for them and their families. I want them to come to America and be embraced. They all want to work. And I just I want their journey to have a happy ending.”
FULL STORY: https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/17/us/marthas-vineyard-migrants-journey-desantis/index.html
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