Ron DeSantis Can’t Troll His Way Into the White House
This week, like almost every week, federal agents will drop hundreds of people at the bus station in Brownsville, Texas. Those people will complete some paperwork, then board a bus—or sometimes a flight from Brownsville’s airport—to other destinations across the United States. On a busy day, as many as 600 people might transit through the city, Mayor Trey Mendez told me last week. “These are real sophisticated travelers,” Mendez said. “They usually have their arrangements made by the time they get here. They’re very good at using technology to get where they need to go.”
The turnstile approach at border crossings such as Brownsville provides the emotional backdrop to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s Martha’s Vineyard airlift last week: Two planeloads of asylum seekers, comprising about 50 people (including several children), arrived unheralded on the island—courtesy of the governor’s office. That stunt looks to have involved deceptive and possibly illegal methods. It may end in a courtroom. For now, it’s upending politics.
When President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris the supposedly “orderly” process at the border between the United States and Mexico, the routinized transit at places such as Brownsville is what they have in mind. The migrants deposited at the Brownsville bus station have invested much time and money to reach the United States from Central America, from Venezuela, from Haiti, or even farther. Most know exactly where they want to go and who will meet them there. They will spend only a few hours in the town, maybe a single night. They have not come this far to linger on the way.
