Could DeSantis’ stunt bring immigration reform? (Probably not)|Bill Cotterell

Whether she meant to or not, Lois Frankel neatly summed up the nation’s immigration situation in one terse sentence when Gov. Ron DeSantis sent two planeloads of asylum seekers to Martha’s Vineyard.

The Palm Beach County congresswoman is usually one of the most loud and loquacious of liberal Democrats, going back to her days in the Florida House in the 1980s. But while deep thinkers from the White House to the panelists on “The View” ranted and raged about DeSantis’ decision to fly 50 immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Frankel just put out a little statement that said, in its entirety, “What we need is real, bipartisan immigration reform — not inhumane political stunts.”

In a dozen words, Frankel made the perfect response, factually and politically. The first part of her comment cited the very real and critically important nature of a border emergency, while the second part embraced the bitter response all Democrats have to take whenever DeSantis does anything.

Flying immigrants to Massachusetts, and boasting that he’ll happily send more, was a political stunt. It was also politically smart, gaining DeSantis more nationwide news attention than anything he’s done since he stripped self-governing status from Walt Disney World in retaliation for the company’s criticism of his law forbidding discussion of sexual topics in public schools.

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State and national leaders have been urging bipartisan immigration reform for at least the last 40 years. They thought bipartisanship was possible in 1986 with the Simpson-Mazzoli bill, when Ronald Reagan took a position that would horrify today’s Republican Party.

And 30 years later, when Donald Trump announced his presidential candidacy by calling illegal immigrants rapists, drug smugglers — and, OK, some good people — the country’s southwest border had become a sure winner for the Republican Party. So, with Vice President Kamala Harris insisting that the border is secure, it was an invitation for Republican governors to send a few thousand asylum seekers to her home, along with such “sanctuaries” as Massachusetts, New York and Washington D.C.

DeSantis, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona were saying, in effect, “You say American should always welcome refugees? Here, have a few thousand of ours.…”

And the way DeSantis went about it, getting a $12 million appropriation from the GOP-run Legislature to ship refugees to other states, was both a strong appeal to the governor’s conservative followers and a swift kick in the shins of Biden and congressional Democrats.

The president and his party are right that DeSantis is using poor, desperate people as pawns for his political purposes. He’s also enforcing the law as it was debated and enacted by Florida legislators — legislators who were elected by Florida voters who twice supported Trump, by an increasing margin.

Effective immigration reforms will probably never get enacted because both sides in Washington would rather have the issue than the solution.

As long as immigrants pour into the country, thousands every day, Trump and the Republicans can promise to build a wall, accuse the Democrats of wanting wide-open borders and scare their followers with tales of violent crime and drugs. Biden and the Democrats, meanwhile, can call the Republicans racists and cast anything done to curb illegal immigration is an attack on people who are just looking for a better life.

Owning the liberals is always fun for DeSantis, and so is calling Republicans flint-hearted racists advantageous for the Democrats. But political gamesmanship aside, the victims here are real people whose lives have been disrupted — many of whom left family and friends behind, lost their jobs and belongings, and travelled thousands of miles, only to be used as props in an election-year stunt.

Bill Cotterell is a retired Tallahassee Democrat capitol reporter who writes a twice-weekly column. He can be reached at bcotterell@tallahassee.com

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Could DeSantis’ stunt bring immigration reform? (Probably not)|Bill Cotterell