The following is a lightly edited transcript of remarks made by Mark Davis during a Newsweek episode of The Debate about conservative politicians sending undocumented migrants to blue states. You can listen to the podcast here:
Politically, it's an obvious slam dunk, proven by the fact that conservatives love it and liberals hate it. I think a lot of the people who dislike this politically are trying to concoct a moral component, as if this is some new modern era Trail of Tears or something — when there really is no moral component to it at all. These people are far from mistreated, and all the imagery of human trafficking and exploitation is purely a matter of politics.
The legality of this is the interesting playground. The sheriff down in Bexar County in San Antonio is launching this investigation without mentioning a single actual law that was violated. There are going to be some questions over the real nuts and bolts of how these folks were put on the plane, and what governors get to do amid what is continually a federal issue. I mean, I don't see any legal problem with it. My job is to make sure that I'm not willfully blind to something just because I love it so much.
The sheriff in Bexar County has concocted illegality just because he doesn't like it. These hand wringing images of these people stuffed on this wonderful plane so they can breathe the ocean air of Massachusetts rather than September steam of Texas… I will stipulate that that I have not walked around talking about all these people as "illegal immigrants" because many of them do, indeed, enjoy momentary legal status as they seek asylum. But there is nothing — I repeat, nothing — in their pending asylum claim that gives them the expectation of any kind of geographic stability. There's nothing that makes moving them from point A in America to point B in America wrong in the least.
Mark Davis is a talk show host for the Salem Media Group on 660AM The Answer in Dallas-Ft. Worth, and a columnist for The Dallas Morning News and Townhall.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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