CNN host says DeSantis, Abbott put segregationists 'to shame'
CNN host Laura Coates compared Govs. Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott's efforts to move illegal immigrants out of their states into liberal cities to segregationists.
"CNN Tonight" host Laura Coates suggested that Republican governors could be worse than the segregationists of the past on Friday.
The segment came after reports that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, R., transported 50 illegal immigrants from his state to Martha’s Vineyard. This followed other Republican governors such as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sending buses of migrants to liberal sanctuary cities like New York City, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Several media pundits and Democratic leaders have called these moves "inhumane" and for DeSantis to be prosecuted for transporting migrants, claiming this qualifies as "human trafficking."
Coates similarly condemned DeSantis’ actions as inhumane and further likened them to behavior from segregationists.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis sent two planes filled with migrants up to the ritzy island of Martha's Vineyard on September 14, 2022. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images and the Associated Press)
MEDIA, DEMOCRATS SLAM DESANTIS FOR SENDING MIGRANTS TO MARTHA’S VINEYARD: ‘INHUMANE, ANTI-AMERICAN’
"Look, the scenes we're seeing in Martha's Vineyard strike, frankly, too familiar a chord. One person here in Washington, D.C., and New York, and in a bus after being stranded, people in the middle of Chicago, as well. It's really all over the country. And they echo something that happened some 60 years of our past," Coates said.
She described efforts by White supremacists to transport Black families away from their homes to John F. Kennedy's holiday home in order to protest civil rights efforts 60 years ago. By pure numbers, she even suggested that DeSantis and Abbott were worse than these White supremacists.
"Now, the numbers, racked up by Governors Abbott and DeSantis put the segregationists of that dark period, well, frankly, to shame in the numbers alone. Now, the Reverse Freedom Riders, they tricked about 200 people into getting onto a bus… while today's Republicans have moved more than 9,000 people, and are promising more," Coates said.
Immigrants gather with their belongings outside St. Andrews Episcopal Church, Wednesday Sept. 14, 2022, in Edgartown, Mass., on Martha's Vineyard. (Ray Ewing/Vineyard Gazette via AP)
Later in the segment, TheGrio White House correspondent April Ryan criticized the story by claiming that it proves how broken the asylum-seeking process truly is, citing debunked claims such as the Border Patrol using whips on Haitian migrants.
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"Every time we see these issues of inhumanity to migrants, there's always a serious discussion, and then it falls off. As we've said, the situation is broken. But let's not just leave it here at Joe Biden. Let's go back to the prior president. What happened? People in cages. People in cages. The inhumanity about that. There was a bluster about that. What happened? Then, what was it last year? The reins used as whips. A bluster then. Inhumanity, once again," Ryan said.
Although Ryan blamed former President Trump for putting "people in cages," many images that were promoted at the time were actually from the Obama administration. In addition, a lengthy investigation proved that Border Patrol agents were not whipping migrants and were instead holding reins.
Oct. 27 2021: Migrants make their way to the U.S. border. (Fox News)
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DeSantis blasted critics after the news broke of his moving migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, claiming that it proves Democrats’ "virtue-signaling" on immigration is a "fraud."