It seems to me that this desire to send illegal immigrants to the north is a thinly veiled attempt to get rid of off-white immigrants. There absolutely must be illegal immigrants in Florida/Texas/Arizona who are fleeing unrest in the Ukraine, or the economic upheavals in Eastern Europe, and yet every single busses-out person I have seen has been of Hispanic descent. Is this just a new set of Reverse Freedom Rides? Just a racist ploy thinly disguised as a political move?
Please note that I have said, repeatedly, that the US immigration policies are nuts, and your borders need to be hardened. But once you put a desperate family on a bus to God knows where so you can suck up some redneck votes, aren't you just using them to grandstand?
Reverse Freedom Rides - Wikipedia.
Edited to add the chart below, which shows 5% (1 in 20) illegals in Florida are European. So, 1 in 20 people on those busses should be white if this is truly about illegal immigration.
Profile of the Unauthorized Population - FL
Well, simply due to geography, proximity, and the disparities in wealth between the U.S. and our southern neighbors, it stands to reason that the vast majority of people coming in are from Latin America. Of course, there are immigrants from other places, too, but if we're looking solely at stats and numbers, then yes, most of them will be Hispanic.
Also, many illegal immigrants are people who entered legally with proper documentation, but in many cases, people overstay their visas, at which point they officially become "illegal."
Though it's not simply a matter of illegal immigration, but also illegal entry into the United States and border security, whether it's people crossing land borders or rowing up to the beaches of Florida.
I wouldn't say it's all that equivalent to the reverse freedom rides, although far more southern blacks migrated north on their own volition.
Likewise, there have been illegal immigrants who, once they enter the U.S., may go to other parts of the country to find work, as this map (data from 2016) would indicate:
U.S. unauthorized immigrant population estimates by state, 2016 | Pew Research Center
But yes, overall, I agree that this is just DeSantis grandstanding.
There are some similarities in both situations in that it points up the issues of regionalism and classism in America. One might hear tropes about "Coastals," who are mostly upper class liberals, and "Middle America," who tend to be middle class conservatives. Of course, in the east, "Coastal" refers only to the coast
north the Chesapeake Bay.
Such tropes convey the image of a white, upper class haughty, hubristic, sanctimonious liberal who grew up in insular, lily-white, luxurious surroundings, and with little to no actual real-world experience or interactions with people they see as beneath them. This view appears to be echoed by DeSantis' comments that "it's easy for them" to declare themselves a 'sanctuary' when they're living on an island populated mostly by wealthy white liberals. They're seen as far removed from the problem, out of touch, and don't really understand it except on an abstract level. (Please note that I'm talking about images and perceptions, not how people might actually be.)
Having said that, I still think DeSantis is wrong and a bit of a miscreant for doing this. I understand the point he's trying to make, but this political stunt is backfiring on him. But the concept he's addressing here is not exactly new, at least in terms of regional perceptions.
