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People in front of a church in Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard: "There will probably be more flights"
Photo: Ray Ewing/AP
Martha's Vineyard is something like the Sylt of the USA, only a little more exclusive.
The Kennedys had a place of retreat here, and the Obamas also like to vacation on the small island off the coast of the state of Massachusetts.
To pressure Democrats on migration policy, Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis sent two planes carrying dozens of migrants right here this week.
The outrage was great, US President Joe Biden spoke of reckless and un-American behavior.
But DeSantis has no intention of changing his course: he wants to continue to instrumentalize migrants with high-profile actions for political purposes.
He announced on Friday that he would continue to bring people to parts of the country dominated by the Democrats.
"There will also be buses, and there will probably be more flights," DeSantis said.
“We want to make sure that taxpayers (in Florida) don't have to foot the bill for tens of thousands or thousands of people who enter the country illegally.
And that's the most effective way to do it.«
Reportedly no suitable accommodations on Martha's Vineyard
With the transports, the Republicans want to increase the pressure on President Biden in migration policy and in securing the border with Mexico.
A few months before the midterm elections, they accuse him of taking too lax a course.
The US government had sharply criticized the procedure and described it as "inhuman".
"This is the type of tactic we've seen used by smugglers in countries like Mexico and Guatemala," White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said.
The politician Julian Cyr, who sits in the Massachusetts Senate for the Democrats, called for an investigation.
It must be checked whether the action should be classified as human trafficking, he said on local television.
In any case, the “moral threshold for human trafficking” has been reached.
The people DeSantis had sent to Martha's Vineyard had been flown to the island from the US state of Texas via Florida - according to DeSantis voluntarily.
He claimed they were chosen because they originally wanted to come to Florida from Texas.
If they did come to Florida, it would come at a high cost to communities, he said.
"We're trying to avoid that."
The US media said that many of those affected did not know where they were actually being taken.
Around 50 of the people who landed on Martha's Vineyard were eventually taken to a military base on neighboring Cape Cod.
As Governor Charlie Baker announced, the island could not provide suitable accommodation for the arrivals, despite the great willingness of the population to help.
So his government offered to take the migrants to nearby Joint Base Cape Cod, so they've already left Martha's Vineyard.
On the military base, people are now to be housed in dormitories and provided with food.
They are mostly people from Venezuela.
The country has been suffering from a severe political and economic crisis for years.
Around six million Venezuelans have left their homeland.
apr/dpa