White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that the policy of transporting illegal migrants from Florida and Texas to Democrat-run cities is “cruel.”
A White House reporter asked the press secretary to comment on migrants being transported to the “Democratic haven” of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and the Vice President Kamala Harris’ official residence in Washington, D.C.. The press secretary said the policy is a “political stunt” and “cruel.”
“It is a political stunt, that’s what we’re seeing from governors, Republican governors in particular and it is a cruel, inhumane way of treating people who are fleeing communism, people who are — and we’re not just talking about people, we’re talking about children, we’re talking about families — who are promised a home, promised a job, put on a bus and driven to a place they do not know. And it is a cruel thing to do,” Jean-Pierre said.
According to The New York Times and Texas Tribune, the migrants who board buses from Texas to blue cities farther north do so voluntarily. The Daily Caller reached out to the office of Republican Florida Gov. Ron Desantis to ask whether the approximately 50 migrants who arrived in Martha’s Vineyard on Thursday had consented to the trip. In response, DeSantis’ office directed the Daily Caller to a previously issued statement that confirmed the flights to Martha’s Vineyard were “part of the state’s relocation program” but did not address the question.
Several of the migrants who were flown to Martha’s Vineyard reportedly told NPR that a woman named Perla approached them outside a shelter in San Antonio, Texas, and promised them a flight to Boston — not Martha’s Vineyard, which has its own airport — where they could obtain expedited work papers.
Jean-Pierre also claimed DeSantis sent a hired videographer on the plane to Massachusetts to film the migrants being dropped off. (RELATED: Reporters Grill Karine Over Border Crisis After Illegals Are Sent To Liberal Enclaves)
“I cannot speak to anything outside of what we’re seeing, right? Which it is indeed a political play, it’s cruel. It is a cruel way for elected officials, for people who have power or the people who are elected by their constituencies to behave in this way, and we should call it out,” the press secretary said. “Other Republicans should call it out. Republicans, their colleagues should be calling out the cruel way that they are playing and what they’re doing with their cruel political games. And again, these are families that are including children.”
Two buses from Eagle Pass, Texas, dropped off 101 migrants in front of the Naval Observatory — the official residence of the vice president — in Washington, D.C., Thursday morning. One migrant told Fox News that the border is “open” and they freely came to the United States.
Another migrant, Wilder Alberto Pinto Sosa, told NewsNation outside of the Naval Observatory that they have been treated with “dignity and respect” since arriving in the U.S.