EDITORIAL: Immigration Trafficking humans for political purposes

Sep. 18—There they were: the "tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free," and we put them on buses to parts unknown to accommodate our vicious politics.

Republican governors Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas sent busloads and planeloads of migrants who had crossed the border in their states to Martha's Vineyard, the wealthy island off the coast of Massachusetts, and to the Washington D.C. residence of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Of course, Fox News was notified presumably by the governors' people, but the social workers who have willingly taken and helped these migrants in the past were not notified.

DeSantis and Abbott say they're making a point that their states should not be the only ones who deal with the 1 million or so migrants that have come to the U.S. in the last year, and that elite mostly Democratic politicians in the places of the destinations should know what it's like to deal with migrants.

For their part, the migrants willingly took the rides with the hope for something better, but many did not know where they were going. And the states where they arrived, even with GOP leadership, charitably took them in and will support them.

These migrants have a legal right to be in the U.S. as they petition for asylum and are enduring long waits for their cases to be heard. U.S. law allows nearly anyone to ask for admittance to the U.S. under asylum laws that apply to those who claim political or other persecution and risk to life in their home countries.

One can argue for spreading out the burden of accepting those who we'll likely call our neighbors one day, but using humans for this kind of political trafficking is unseemly and un-American. It's disrespectful to these people who are ready to love our country as their own, willing to get jobs, work, raise families and pay taxes.

Our politics have become so mean that we don't care how it affects our "huddled masses" who only want for us to "light a lamp at the golden door" — a door we close at our peril.