| | | quote | Originally posted by NewDustin:
Even if you accept the premises behind that argument (that Biden made a mess and Trump has to clean it up) purposefully targeting areas based on political allegiance and not presence of the "mess" is problematic. To that point, Texas and Florida (2nd and 3rd highest number of resident illegal immigrants respectively) are not being targeted like California is. Trump is not promising to send massive ICE presence into Texas cities to stop the issue there; in fact, he's actively allowing conservative states to continue using illegal farm labor.
I do think you are right about this being about campaign promises though. There is a huge amount of vengeance in Trump's rhetoric. It's pretty pervasive in the discussions with his supporters as well. A lot of this is expressly about people "getting what they deserve" for supporting political positions that are unpopular with MAGA. They're punishing LA for being leftist. |
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I can answer this. When I worked at US SOUTHCOM, one of our focuses was on the border (working with NORTHCOM). This was under President Obama.
The reason why Florida is less targeted, specifically... because the pervasiveness of criminal aliens (minus illegally crossing the border) do not exist in Florida. Florida has a lot of Central American workers. There are entire encampments just 30 minutes from my house. There are even huge towns that exist entirely with immigrant workers (most of whom are illegal). Sun City, for example... is all immigrant, and they work the strawberry fields, etc. Florida is VERY, VERY strict on crime... but they leave the farm workers completely alone because they don't want an adverse effect on the businesses here in Florida (everyone from the sugar, strawberry, and orange production). Under Biden, Florida would arrest many of the criminals that made it down to Florida and give them to ICE, and often times ICE would let them go (in another state).
But California, for example... has a lot of cities that are sanctuary cities. The truth is... Florida is a bigger "sanctuary" state than California is, to a degree... but it's not something they talk about. It's on who's targeted. Sanctuary cities come with it, an understanding that the police and local government isn't going to support the arrest and detention of illegals... regardless of what they've done.
In Florida, the police are well aware of the illegals that work the fields. The majority of them are illegal... either they had work VISAs at one point, or let them expire... but they're almost all illegal. The police know they're there, DeSantis knows they're there, etc... but they don't bother them because they're not violent criminals.
In California though... the violent criminals know they can escape to that state and have at least another layer of protection... because they would be arrested immediately in Florida and sent off. There's at least a level of apathy, and a willing local government to allow them to stay. The local government of course makes it seem like they're protecting grandma from El Salvador, and little Anna from Ecuador... but, it's also helping Joaquín Escobar hide from the Federales.
EDIT to say... the emphasis is not focused on the people who are actually working, earning money, and supporting the economy. The emphasis is on the drug narcos, gangs, and violent criminals, almost all of whom are in places like Houston, LA, NYC, etc. The only major busts you see (in Florida) are human trafficking, which is directly related to a demand for such product (hate to word it that way) in Miami from the wealthy South Americans.
[This message has been edited by 82-T/A [At Work] (edited 06-16-2025).]
