Fifty illegal immigrants were at Martha's Vineyard for less than two days before 125 National Guardsmen were sent by Gov. Charlie Baker (R-MA) to remove them and send them to a new shelter at Joint Base Cape Cod. It nevertheless provided an extraordinary display in Democratic hypocrisy, including and especially, but not limited to, those residents on the island which is particularly wealthy and particularly white.
That didn't stop Ray Sanchez from going with this headline at CNN: "'They enriched us.' Migrants' 44-hour visit leaves indelible mark on Martha's Vineyard."
"After sharing hugs and teary goodbyes with roughly 50 migrants who had arrived unexpectedly by plane on this affluent vacation island, the volunteers who sheltered them at an Episcopal church carried out tables and chairs, packed food onto trucks and folded portable cots," is how the piece begins, before going on to interview various residents.
Not only does Sanchez not cover the residents who were all too happy to see the immigrants gone, even applauding their departure, but he covers those who are going for a self-congratulatory perspective.
One section of the piece is titled "A sweet gesture." When it comes to the crowd of lawyers warning they were considering "legal action," the following scene is painted:
A bystander suddenly tossed a bag of chocolates.
"I brought the candy," said Matt Frederick, 54, a local who said he works as a waiter and cab driver and lives in his car. He had been handing out bags of candy to the migrants on the street. He said he had spent $100 on the sweets.
"I just feel compassion," he said, adding that he lives in his car because he refuses to pay the exorbitant rents on the island. "There are lot of people here who are struggling to get by. It's not all rich people."
...
On Friday, after the migrants had left Martha's Vineyard, a volunteer with the Harbor Homes nonprofit, Sean O'Sullivan, disassembled the folding cots that 18 of the male migrants slept on in the parish hall.
"The year round community is very strong because you are kind of isolated here -- whether it's the ferry or the bad weather, you're stuck here," he said. "We're used to helping each other. We're used to dealing with people in need and we're super happy -- like they enriched us, we're happy to help them on their journey."
At the empty parish house hours after the migrants had departed, Charles Rus, the church organist and music director, said the place felt lonely.
"The governor of Florida got it wrong," he said. "I think he thought we wouldn't know what to do. And actually people here really give a damn. They really care."
Apparently Rus didn't see how his fellow Martha's Vineyard residents reacted, like this one.
In July 2022, 49,563 illegals crossed the border into Del Rio, Texas. This woman, who is a resident of Martha’s Vineyard, is devastated that FIFTY migrants have arrived on the island.
— Ian McKelvey (@ian_mckelvey) September 16, 2022
Rich leftists couldn’t be more hypocritical even if they wanted to. pic.twitter.com/YIQyzHr2rc
Sanchez also goes through great lengths to pose problems at the border as coming from Republicans, at least early on in his piece. Emphasis is mine:
The asylum seekers -- most of them from Venezuela -- had been flown from Texas to Martha's Vineyard on Wednesday under arrangements made by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis -- part of a series of moves by Republican governors to transport migrants to liberal cities to protest what they describe as the failure of the federal government to secure the southern border.
Martha's Vineyard had not been expecting them but a small army of activists mobilized to help people who had become pawns in the contentious debate over America's broken immigration system.
While Sanchez does finally address a more accurate scene at the border, it's not until much longer in his piece. And there's no reference as to how the Biden administration is at fault.
As he describes:
The couple started the roadless crossing on the border between Colombia and Panama -- the deadly Darién Gap -- with more than 60 other migrants, Torrealba said outside the parish house on Thursday night. Only 22 completed the trek across the 60 miles of jungle and steep mountains, he said. Some fell from cliffs, others were swept away by flood waters.
Those deaths are occurring at a time when a record number of undocumentedmigrants are overwhelming the US-Mexico border and dying while attempting to cross.
In Mexico, Torrealba said, the couple and other migrants were briefly abducted by members of the Zetas cartel, a violent drug trafficking organization. When he told them he could not make the extortion payment to allow them to continue, he said, a cartel member used pliers to pull out his two gold teeth.
Making the headline even more ridiculous is that CNN actually referenced the Holocaust while talking about Gov. Ron DeSantis' (R-FL) sending the illegal immigrants over to the island.
While speaking with Ken Burns about his documentary on the Holocaust, CNN's John Berman on Thursday pointed out that "we woke up to the news this morning that Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida sent two plane loads of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts, including kids and whatnot. This is not a one for one, this is not a parallel here in any way," Berman said, before then going on to claim "but it does address some of the same themes that are part of this documentary."
Burns, whose documentary is called "The U.S. and the Holocaust," which blames countries like the United States were supposedly not doing enough, in response complained "this is coming straight out of the authoritarian playbook. This is what’s so disturbing about DeSantis, to use human beings, to weaponize human beings for a political purpose."
CNN tweeted out Sanchez's article early on Sunday morning, which resulted in nearly 1,800 replies. Of the 483 retweets, 333 were quoted retweets mocking the headline.
During their whirlwind visit to Martha's Vineyard, roughly 50 migrants left an indelible impression on their accidental hosts https://t.co/1cBeqfOaCU
— CNN (@CNN) September 18, 2022
Our friends at Twitchy also highlighted the ridiculous article over the weekend.
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