Florida Governor Ron DeSantis grabbed the public’s attention when he decided to send 50 Venezuelan immigrants up to Martha’s Vineyard to bring attention to the United States immigration issues. DeSantis had valid reasons for pulling this political stunt, but the end result backfired because of the response to the stunt.

Immigrants are allowed to migrate to the U.S. freely if they come here seeking asylum. This has caused overwhelming population issues in southern states’ border communities because in 2022 almost 2 million immigrants crossed the borders. These southern states are supposed to provide for incoming immigrants, but they are getting overwhelmed and the issue needs to be addressed.

DeSantis tried to address this problem by sending immigrants to Massachusetts which is an “extreme measure being taken to showcase that frustration,” social studies teacher Ryan Miller said. Miller adds that the frustration is caused by “an increase of illegal immigration.”

DeSantis pulled this political stunt to protest against Biden’s laid-back immigration policies. DeSantis believed the states that support the open-border policies should have a part in helping all the immigrants. He sent them to the democratic island of Martha’s Vineyard, a place that advertises its willingness to welcome people from all walks of life, so they could share the feeling of what it is like to be a state on the southern border.

Democratic states voted for these laid-back laws, but are not the ones that have to deal with all of their effects of them. It is easy for these states to “talk the talk, but eventually, they have to walk the walk, ” junior Raymond Carbone explained.

Carbone added that these democratic states are getting upset over what is happening, even though they are getting what they asked for. It is what they voted on.

“It’s hypocritical,” Carbone said.

The immigrants were sent to Martha’s Vineyard with false hope. “They were lured onto the plane with promises of help getting work,” Eve Zuckoff on NPR news said.

When they got there, everyone was confused. Both, the immigrants and the people at Martha’s Vineyard. It became evident that they were not being sent there for job opportunities, but to prove a point.

“However, part of the political ploy backfired because of the open and kind reception that the immigrants received at Martha’s Vineyard,” Miller said. “But it did raise a fair question on what should immigration policies look like moving forward and it does need to be a high priority for the U.S. because it will likely continue to only grow as an issue.”

Publicity played a big part in DeSantis’ plan. He sent the immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard because the island has lots of media coverage. The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, has also sent immigrants to sanctuary cities like Chicago and New York but has not gained the same amount of publicity as DeSantis. This shows that DeSantis successfully brought attention to immigration policies.

“DeSantis was trying to highlight that this is an issue that can affect everybody, even wealthy white liberals in Martha’s Vineyard,” Miller said. He was trying to bring attention to everything wrong with current immigration policies so they can be addressed and eventually fixed or changed.

DeSantis’s ploy is meant to be a wake-up call to the U.S. government to look further into immigration policies so that the government can better control the people coming in and out of our country. This is also a call out to democratic states and governors that voted for the open-boundary laws because they voted for these laws. They need to take some of the responsibility upon themselves to help with all the incoming immigrants. They cannot just let the southern states take it all on.